When did the Joker ever make sense?
by insanityfairy
Summary: Set a few months after The Dark Knight; the Joker breaks out of Arkham to wreak mayhem and terror once again, only it's nothing like last time. Introduces Harley Quinn. May make slightly more sense if I ever put up subsequent chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Commissioner Gordon braced himself as he drove up to the foreboding grey building

Commissioner Gordon braced himself as he drove up to the foreboding grey building. Arkham Asylum was a miserable place, and the Commissioner couldn't help but wonder if the depressing architecture was meant to be a deterrent to people trying to escape regular prison on grounds of insanity; no one in their right mind would ever want to come here. It was said the staff were as mad as the patients, and the only reason they weren't patents themselves were that they weren't _crimininally _insane. Usually. After Dr. Crane, a team of psychologists had been assigned to evaluate the Arkham staff regularly, as well as monitor the treatment of their patients. Commissioner Gordon oversaw this oversight committee personally, and visited Arkham as frequently as he could bear in order to check up on its most famous patient.

"Any news?" Commissioner Gordon asked while checking in.

"Plenty; head over to Block F and they'll tell you all about it." His curiosity piqued, Gordon made his way through the numerous gates, double-reinforced doorways and guard stations that led to the asylum's maximum security section of the maximum security core. Dr. Crane, A.K.A. Scarecrow resided here, as did one other patient-prisoner.

"Commissoner, welcome!" John Dibaba, a gigantic Ethiopian nurse, greeted him as he arrived in Block F. John was a pious catholic, and he truly believed it was his calling to be a nurse to the criminally insane. Most of the staff in Block F were very religious; it gave them an extra layer of protection against their patients' verbal salvos. Block F of the maximum security section was reserved for those whose violent madness was "contagious," for lack of a better term.

"John, reception told me there's news?"

"Big news, Commissioner; very big. The new intern is a miracle-worker! She has a gift; we have been so blessed by her. _He's_ made so much progress in the last month alone!"

"Really?"

"Oh yes, amazing; nowhere near as violent now. Of course, nobody minds having a lovely intern in this grim old place, least of all him;" John leaned over and whispered, "I think he fancies her. Crane is always trying to chat her up, too."

Gordon looked over into Dr. Jonathan Crane's cell. Crane was clean and well-groomed. He wasn't wearing a strait jacket, just the white clothing assigned to all Arkham patients. He was watching them and nodded in greeting. His cell was on the complete opposite end of the block from the other patient's. Crane had demanded this arrangement, saying the other patient scared him. Nobody had argued. He looked…broken.

A pretty young redhead with stunning blue eyes and a stern expression appeared. "Dr. Quinzel," John called to her, "he's refusing to take his medication again." He offered a small paper cup to the young woman.

She sighed and took it. "You're enabling and empowering him, John. You can't let him intimidate you." She scolded him in a way that told the Commissioner she'd done it countless times before. She spoke in a New York accent that had been greatly polished by her considerable education. She headed towards her patient's cell.

"I still remember her first day here; pretty little thing like that; I was worried sick. But she goes up to that freak's cell, and he looks at her, and grins, and says what a pleasure it is to see her, then asks if she'd like to know how he got his scars. You know, his usual gig."

"His stories get more disturbing every time."

"Yeah, well, she says 'you did it to yourself. You had no reason.' Never even looks up from her clipboard. I tell you he was so taken aback she got him to take his first dose of antidepressants as easily as you'd take your aspirin."

Dr. Quinzel nodded to one of the four guards standing outside of a cell. They all looked even more humourless than she did. Gordon watched as she grabbed the Joker, held by two nurses, now devoid of makeup, his purple suit replaced with a white strait jacket, by his still-greasy-but-now-dirty-blonde hair, wrenching his head back and forcing his mouth open. The scars of the Glasgow smile on his face were the only trace remaining of the grinning fiend who had terrorized Gotham. She then shoved a pill down his throat with her finger. She then nodded for the nurses to release him. He scrambled to the back corner of the padded cell to sulk.

"Do you want some water?" Dr. Quinzel asked him in a cool, professional tone. He never raised his eyes to her, but, after a moment, nodded once. She brought some over in a wax paper cup. He drank like a man defeated, having her lift the cup, as his arms were secured to his sides. "Why do you persist in this, Mr. J? You know perfectly well you wouldn't be restrained at all if you took it yourself, on time."

"You like it better this way," the Joker answered, and for an instant, he looked at Dr. Quinzel with all the wicked intelligence the Commissioner knew he possessed.

"I _like _it when my patients do what is best for their well-being," Dr. Quinzel countered, completely unrattled.

"Ha hah haha…" the Joker chuckled, "HAHAHAHAHA!" his manic laughter echoed through the hallway. Dr. Quinzel exited the cell and closed the door, returning silence to the dreary halls. She hurried down to Dr. Crane's cell.

The four guards followed her, but didn't seem to be anywhere near as careful with Crane. One opened the door for her before the others had caught up. Crane was now hysterical. He was curled up in a foetal position, rocking back and forth with his hands over his ears, saying "I'm being good!" over and over again.

"Jonathan," Dr. Quinzel called, taking him by the shoulder.

"I'm being good!" he insisted to her.

"Yes, Jonathan, you've been extremely cooperative," Dr. Quinzel assured him. "You'll be transferred to the other side of the facility as soon as we can be certain you don't pose a threat to the other patients, nor they to you. Many of the patients in the regular treatment program were subject to your experiments and they do not remember you fondly. We have to make certain you'll be safe; you know that."

Crane turned to Gordon with a pleading expression. He was sweating profusely and obviously terrified. "Nothing scares him. There's a great big hole where his feelings should be. He gives my nightmares nightmares." He looked back at Dr. Quinzel, "she's got a hole, too."

"Jonathan, what have I said about derogatory remarks? Besides, Mr. J is making progress, just not as quickly as you. We have to be patient with him. Now; do you want something to help you relax?" Dr. Quinzel asked him.

Dr. Crane smiled like a man being offered salvation. "Yes, please."

Dr. Quinzel called to John, "Sedate him."

John nodded, went away and came back with a hypodermic needle. Crane eagerly offered his wrist, and sighed happily as he was injected. John helped Dr. Crane onto the bed, and he drifted off into a drug-induced sleep.

"You must be Commissioner Gordon," Dr. Quinzel said, finally turning her attention to him and offering her hand, "Doctor Harleen Quinzel. I'm interning here, and will most likely join the staff on completion of my internship. Might I say I think it's very responsible of you to personally oversee the patients in this facility?"

"The safety of Gotham depends a great deal on the effective operation of Arkham Asylum. I consider it my duty to come." Actually, Batman assigned him that duty, since he could hardly come himself, but Gordon wasn't going to tell them that. "Doctor, is it true you specifically requested to work with the Joker?"

"It is. And we don't use that name here; we address him as Mr. J, as he persists in refusing to provide us with his real identity."

"Has there been any development at all in finding out who he is?"

"Very little, I'm afraid, and what little we have is mostly conjecture. He is a pathological liar and the information he does give us is so contradictive we have to assume it's all false. I have been able to make a few strong observations from his behaviour, however. He was almost certainly abused as a child, probably battered by both parents, and possibly by subsequent foster parents. We're running him through Children's Aid, but so far we don't have any matches. While he was physically abused, he was intensely educated."

"How do you know that?"

"While genius is born, it must be nurtured to survive. That is why the women born in those polygamist colonies have such low IQ's, they are exposed to nothing but physical labour, and their education is neglected. So of course they are content to be cattle, since they have no chance to grow mentally. Mr. J, on the other hand, had someone instructing him in critical thought, weaponry, combat and terrorism. Other than that, his range of knowledge is very limited.

"He doesn't even make cultural references, or show signs of knowing popular songs or television or movies from any era. Judging from all that, I'd say he was home-schooled in extreme social isolation. He has a natural aptitude for the physical sciences, and it stands in very odd contrast to his newfound affinity for cartoons. He was fascinated when I told him about Darwin and the Theory of Evolution. He is also very interested in biochemistry, and insists on knowing the minute details of how all of his medication works at a molecular level. I frequently make him ask Dr. Crane to explain it to him, as it allows Dr. Crane to maintain his skills and fosters interdependency.

"Forensics said he is probably in his early twenties. IQ of at least 180, though he won't cooperate long enough to complete a Standford-Binet test, and it's impossible to get an accurate score without knowing his age for certain. It sounds like a lot, but really, it isn't."

"Well, I can say you seem to be the right person for the job; the Joker was committed eight months ago, went through every sort of drug therapy and psychotherapy program available. Nothing changed him at all. Looking at him now, it's only been six weeks and the difference is amazing! I've never seen him so calm or so cooperative. I have to ask how you've done it?"

"His progress has to be gauged against his obvious transference, remember, but it is still significant. A lot of it was back to basics; a regular schedule, good, nutritious meals, a fitness program. But to be honest, none of it would be possible without the antidepressants. It was obvious to me from the start he needed them; I have no idea why it never occurred to anyone else. I make sure he takes them every day at the same time. It's done him a world of good; he seems to be genuinely happy a lot of the time, now. He even has a sense of humour. He's very fond of gag props and joke paraphernalia, and keeps smuggling it in somehow."

"I still don't know how he got that rubber chicken," John interjected, rubbing his head, perplexed, "though I'm not sure I want to. I think he's downright jolly most days."

"Johnathan almost had a nervous fit when Mr. J got him with a joy buzzer." Dr. Quinzel allowed herself the barest of smiles. "I also insist that all my patients have regular social interaction. Jonathan has more or less normal social skills, and is allowed to interact with Arkham's mildest cases -under strict supervision, of course. Being a psychologist himself, he knows how to behave around the mentally ill and the social time seems to benefit both parties. As you know, Mr. J of has an avid following among our most extreme anti-socials. They do what he says and so he tolerates them. All in all they follow the schedule and have of course made significant improvements."

"Well, Block F is clearly in very capable hands," Commissioner Gordon told Dr. Quinzel as he shook her hand, "I'm looking forward to your patients' progress."

"As am I, Commissioner." Gordon tried to ignore the chill he got when she said it.

He returned through the various security checkpoints, eager to be out but trying not to look it. As he approached the surveillance station, he heard the Joker's voice.

"Would you like my…professional opinion of the good doctor, com-mishoner?" The Joker asked, grinning into the camera. Gordon was alarmed for a second, then realized the Joker must know exactly how long it took him to reach the surveillance station. It was still a concern. He stopped and looked at the screen. "Dr. Quinzel likes to bully people. And she's very good at it. She's got old Scarecrow good and whipped, and she _loves _roughing me up," the Joker shivered with enjoyment, "though we don't get it half as bad as the staff do, ho-hoo! I wouldn't take their jobs for anything! Frankly I think it's going to be a race to see whether she or the Bat gets locked up first. I _do _hope that hot little piece of ass will be my cell mate! Oh, but don't tell her I said so."

The commissioner turned to the guard in the station, "This surveillance footage is saved somewhere, isn't it?"

"Yup," said the guard.

"And Dr. Quinzel sees it, doesn't she?"

"Every word," the guard assured him. "Don't let it bug ya, commish, that nut's always going on about the doc. Goin' on about how he wants to wrestle her in peanut butter or have her tie him up with barbed wire and 'riding him like she's trying to break a rocking horse.' You know how he likes to be hurt, he tries to make her get rough with him every chance he gets. She's always by the book, though. You could never write her up for nothin'."

"I'll bet," the Commissioner answered. He wanted to sound like he had every confidence in the good Doctor, and ignore that deep down, he thought the Joker was dead right. You had to have faith; in these dark times, it was all that stood between humanity and the Joker's vision of what it should be.

Dr Quinzel reached for her radio and called the guard in the monitoring room. "Come here, I want to check up on Dr. Crane."

She joined the guard outside Crane's cell. He looked agitated. "Are you all right, Jonathan?"

"Why did you go over there alone?! You're _never _supposed to interact with maximum security patients unsupervised!"

"And you should know; you wrote the protocol. Then violated it repeatedly to experiment on your patients."

"Look where it got me," Crane answered sardonically.

"Your concerns are noted, Jonathan, thank you."

Crane shook his head. "The hole is getting bigger…the hole in your head…" Crane

Commissioner Gordon walked into the dark alleyway, trying to ignore how completely insane it was for a person as loathed as he was by Gotham's underworld to do such a thing at four-thirty in the morning. "Are you there?" he asked quietly, feeling rather silly for talking to the dark.

But the barest hint of movement could be seen in the shadows, and the Batman emerged. "I know you wouldn't risk contacting me if it wasn't important, but we should still make this quick."

"The Joker has escaped from Arkham."

Gordon thought he saw Batman wince. "How?"

"It seems he had a cell in solitary prepared for him. He was sent there this morning, or yesterday morning now. He broke out of solitary about an hour and a half ago, and was out of Arkham in about half an hour. He passed Dr. Quinzel on his way out, and she says he hid in the woods until a white van came to pick him up. She said it looked like it was industrial in nature, no markings, and it was too dark to read the plates. Tech is trying to get a number off surveillance, but odds are it's a stolen vehicle they'll have ditched by the time we get something useful."

"Do you have a copy of the footage?"

"Here," he handed Batman a DVD.

"How did the van get past the perimeter?"

"Rocket launcher."

"Sounds like a good argument for having all Gotham detention centers' physical defences upgraded."

"You're right. I'll suggest it to the mayor when I break this to him…after the sun is up."

"I'll be in touch. Good luck."

"God help us if that lunatic is set loose on Gotham again."

"_Gotham is once again in the grip of fear: the Joker has escaped!"_ the news reporter announced in her usual impartial tone, a grinning portrait of the Joker above and to the right of her, _"Police officials have confirmed members of the Joker's gang broke into Arkham Asylum early this morning and freed him."_

The tv cut to Commissioner Gordon having a press conference. _"I must regretfully confirm that yes, the Joker is currently at large, and all of Gotham P.D. is on high alert. Furthermore, the mayor has authorised me to offer a reward of 5,000 for any confirmed Joker sightings promptly reported to the police, which will become 5,000,000 if the Joker is apprehended. We will not, I repeat NOT allow this menace to terrorize the city once again."_

Bruce Wayne watched it all pensively.

Commissioner Gordon sorted out which reporter he would answer first. _"Commissioner, is it true the Joker has already claimed his first victim?"_

"_I'm afraid that is correct: a pimp known as Pete Martin was found dead early this morning at the corner of Howe and 17__th__ street. The Joker also…assaulted a prostitute that was with the man."_

Bruce rubbed his temples "How can I stop this from happening again?" he asked, searching desperately for an answer.

"Dr. Quinzel," Commissioner Gordon greeted her when she arrived at the station, "We were going to call you."

"I thought I'd save you the trouble. Here's Mr. J's file," she handed it over. "I want to assure you I will help in any way I can."

"Five bodies, five Joker sightings: Pete Martin found at Howe and 17th, Frankie Ingles at Atwood and 21st, Nancy Derek at Lars and 9th, Marty Evans at Elm and 14th. All at exactly 2:23 in the morning. Streetwalkers, pimps and street-level dealers; small-time low-lifes: not the Joker's usual fare. If we assume, as the eyewitness account suggested, that the first killing was done hastily and not planned, but the location where the body was found was "

"I know, a child could figure it out; he's spelling out my name, and the victims' names spell 'find me.'"

"Yes. Which means he's going to strike on 26th street next, but we don't know whether he'll choose Escher, Eckhart or Elm again. And there's more: Marty Evans wasn't stabbed to death; he was poisoned." The commissioner passed a crime scene photo to Dr. Quinzel.

"Died with a smile on his face," she said, shaking her head. The unfortunate man bore a manic grin.

"This is no time to be droll, Doctor. Pathology found an unknown toxin in his system. The closest thing we found to it was Felinax."

"His antidepressant?"

"Anything you can tell us will help."

"Felinax actually contains two drugs: the first counteracts chemical changes in the brain linked to depression. The second is activated by violent impulses. When the patient gets an urge behave aggressively, it stimulates parts of the brain known to cause bliss and complacency. Simply put; the subject loses all interest in violent behaviour in a rush of pleasant feelings. Unfortunately, there is a risk of side effects, such as uncontrollable laughter, which is why it is only used of very serious cases, and is not available to the general public."

"And the Joker insisted on knowing how it worked inside and out."

"Oh god! What have I done?"

"Please, Doctor; we need to know where he'll appear next. Which street will he choose?"

Dr. Quinzel shook her head. "I'm sorry, he's incredibly complicated and I was barely able to scratch the surface of his mind. He was just too dangerous to do full sessions with; you have to understand! And…I'm not a forensic psychologist, Commissioner; this sort of reconstruction is not my expertise. I can try to work it out, but, I'm afraid I can't make any promises."

"Our people are completely stumped; you know him better than anyone. Please try."

Dr. Quinzel looked over everything the Commissioner had gathered, thinking hard. "Eckhart."

"You think he'll choose there?"

Dr. Quinzel shrugged. "It sounds funny."

"It's all we've got." Gordon turned to the police behind him. "I want eyes all over Eckhart and 26th. I want patrols up and down 26th, Eckhart, Elm and Escher, in that order."

"If that is all, Commissioner, I'd like to go home; I think I need to lie down."

"I want you escorted at all times, Dr. Quinzel; this could well be a sick joke, and your murder the punchline."

"Of course."

"_Commissioner, we found something, and you're not going to like it,"_ came the grim voice over the radio.

"Another body?" Gordon looked at his watch; it was 2:23 am exactly.

"_No; no body and no Joker."_

"Then what _did _you find?"

"_A doll, Commisioner, a Suzie Doll with red hair and blue eyes dressed in a harlequin costume."_

"Anything else?"

"_It was holding a little toy suitcase with a note in it saying 'goodbye.'"_

"Detective Reeve, report, is Dr. Quinzel all right?"

"_She's…she's gone sir."_

"What happened?"

"_We were getting ready to relocate Dr. Quinzel to a more secure location. Perkins went to check on some suspicious activity outside the building, and got tasered. Somebody knocked me out. I just woke up, I've been out for almost half an hour, and she's long gone. No sign of a struggle."_

"Damnit!" Gordon hissed as he slammed the receiver down on the desk. He leaned out the window to get some air. There was a dark shadow not far below. "Please tell me you have a back-up plan."

"I do."

Godon's cell phone rang, it was a blocked number. Gotham P.D. wasn't supposed to get blocked numbers, so there was only one person it could be. It had been over an hour since he'd seen Batman on the window sill, and for it to have taken so long was a bad sign. _"An old abandoned warehouse on J and 17__th__. I'm sorry; I was too late."_

Gordon sat dejectedly in his car, letting CSI finish up. The inside of the warehouse was a gruesome scene: there was a back room with blood all over it. Someone had been tied up with rope and cut repeatedly. There were also several discarded packages for keeping surgical equipment sterilised; meaning the victim had likely been stitched back together without anaesthesia, no doubt to be kept alive and tortured again. Even for the Joker, it was ghoulish.

"I put a tracer on Dr. Quinzel, but I lost the signal. When I was able to find it again, this was what I found." Batman told Gordon as he appeared from the shadows.

"We might still find something," Gordon offered, to comfort himself as much as the Batman, "Dr. Quinzel is still alive; we might still be able to recover her, and she might have important information when we do." Gordon's cell phone rang. "It's forensics; they must have matched the DNA and finger prints. Excuse me –Gordon here."

"_Commissioner, I'm sorry about the delay but…the matches I got didn't make any sense; I ran them through four times…they still don't make any sense."_

"Just…tell me what you found."

"_The fingerprints don't belong to the Joker or any of his gang, and the blood isn't Dr. Quinzel's. It's not even a woman's; the testosterone levels are too high"_

"You said you found a match?"

"_That's what doesn't make any sense: the __**fingerprints**__ are Dr. Quinzel's, and the __**blood**__ belongs to the Joker."_

"What about the scalpel we found?"

"_Same thing again; Dr. Quinzel's finger prints on the handle, and the Joker's DNA in the blood. It's her fingerprints on the packaging as well as the rope and his DNA in the tissue on the rope fibres."_

"Why the hell would the Joker create a fake crime scene with him as the victim?"

"_Damned if I know, but we'll keep working on it."_

"There must be explanation," Batman said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I'm happy to hear about any theories you have. I'll call CSI out so you can look at the room." Gordon went to call CSI out and tell them what he'd heard.

It had been three weeks since Dr. Quinzel's disappearance. In that time, the Joker had stolen an entire shipment of fine European chocolates, painted several blocks of the east side in bright primary colours, stolen a couple of hyenas, puffed up all of the rice in a warehouse, making the building explode, and produced several victims of his new toxin. He appeared to be experimenting with dosage as well as variations on lethality: some people laughed for a couple of days then recovered with no further symptoms, some people were found to have died laughing. Others still would just start all of a sudden, and laugh themselves into asphyxiation.

"It doesn't make sense, Alfred, why would he pull college pranks?"

"Only the Joker knows for certain, sir."

"He's made no threats, no ransom demands, shown sign of Dr. Quinzel or given any indication of what his intentions for her are."

"Perhaps she had discovered something he didn't want known," Alfred offered.

"Then why not just kill her outright? He must have had several opportunities, including when he first broke out of Arkham. No, she must be of some value to him alive. I just can't figure out why." He shook his head. "I'm going on patrol; maybe tonight I'll find something."

While a new batmobile was being carefully and quietly made, Batman was making due with a batcycle. He was using it and a new sensing system to root out caches of the most dangerous weapons in Gotham's underworld, to great effect. These caches were generally in areas so violent the Gotham PD avoided them, and so it was unlikely he would have a bad run-in with the police while he patrolled. Unfortunately, the criminals who held the weapons had realized what he was up to, and were throwing everything they had at him. Batman was prepared; better him than the police, or innocent bystanders.

Worse still, most of the caches he'd uncovered so far belonged to Maroni's men, and that meant the Joker's weapons were now probably well-defended and the clowns guarding them well-prepared, and getting more so every time he found one of Maroni's outfits and not the Joker's. Tonight he was in one of many of Gotham's old warehouse districts; the abandoned buildings were crawling with scum of all sorts, and his sensor was going haywire. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of white. He hit the brakes, but that only gave the clown with the harpoon a slower-moving target. The weapon's explosive tip, designed to kill a whale on contact, ripped through the batcycle's armour-plating like paper. The anchor-like part left after the explosion latched onto the batcycle, rendering it useless. Batman set the batcycle's auto-destruct for twenty seconds and hurried towards the warehouse the sensor last targeted.

The body armour Batman had put on for this patrol was second in protection only to an armoured vehicle; the suit had an underlying layer of Kevlar, followed by custom-fit titanium plates. His face was completely covered and triple-redundant sonar systems fed him audio and visual input. The ears of his suit contained an advanced filtering system that allowed him to breathe quickly while being unaffected by smoke, tear gas and other airborne threats. Bionics gave him a stronger punch and greater speed even under the weight of his virtually-impenetrable armour. He also carried a ceramic shield almost as tall as he was, though this was mainly intended to draw fire and attacks away from him as his opponents attempted to deprive him of it. The sub-machine guns that made up the first line of defence didn't even slow him down.

Next they used grenade launchers. Batman clambered out of the craters the grenades made and carried on. The clowns persisted with the grenades dangerously close to the warehouse, blowing a couple of holes into the wall of the building. Batman obligingly entered using one of the holes. On the other side was a manned turret-mounted Gatling gun, no doubt loaded with armour-piercing shells. Batman dove behind his shield and threw a charged batarang at the gunman. He hit and stunned the man, but not before getting grazed by a bullet. He attached an explosive charge to a key point on the Gatling and dragged the gunman to a (reasonably) safe distance away from the impending blast. He scanned and found a second, unmanned Gatling. He fired a few self-attaching charges at the second Gatling. Nearby goons wisely scattered. Batman scanned the area for ammunition and guns not currently in use. He pressed further into the warehouse, shielding the opening the bullet graze had made in his armour and taking out nearby goons as he went. He fired off more self-attaching explosives at the weapons of men who stayed farther off, taking out a lot of the higher-calibre weaponry, but there seemed to be no end to the guns and no place in particular they were being kept. He pushed the gangsters back away from one of the more obvious stockpiles, creating a perimeter, and blew a hole in the ceiling. He hunkered down and punched some commands into a device on his left wrist. The device directed a nearby drone helicopter to drop its load through the hole in the roof onto the gun stockpile. It dropped a substance that burned so hot and fast it made Napalm look like a sunny day and the weaponry was reduced to molten slag in a manner of minutes. The fire burned itself out in a very concentrated area in the process. Batman blew a second hole in the roof. Firefight intensified but the gunmen fell back. Another stockpile was promptly reduced to slag. Many of the fighters had now fled the building, while those that remained were turning from defending the weaponry to throwing everything they had at him. Batman used one of the slag piles for cover while he attempted to push the remaining gunmen out of the building, destroying any unattended weapons with more firebombs. The gangsters threw caution to the wind and resorted to grenade and rocket launchers, clearly determined to take Batman out with the building. Something hot ripped through Batman's leg, hamstringing him. A huge piece of flying concrete hit him in the head. As the world went dark, he thought he heard the Joker laughing.

Batman awoke with a strange sort of haze clouding his mind. It took him a moment to realize he was under the effects of a very strong painkiller, probably narcotic, judging by how little he was worried about it. He was also flat on his back. He couldn't understand what he was seeing and hearing at first. He had to think really hard before he remembered how to interpret the data from the sonar equipment. It was just too confusing, so he gave a voice command that deactivated it and removed the parts of his face shield that blocked his mouth and eyes.

"Whoop; he's waking up!" it was the Joker's voice, and he was way too close. Batman tried to get up and into a more defendable position. He found that he was strapped down.

"Hold still! You'll pull your stitches an' I ain't even finished yet!" came a shrill woman's voice nearby. A red-headed blur was moving down near his injured leg. The blur focused itself into a young redheaded woman focusing intently on making neat little sutures. The armour plating around the injury had been bent back just far enough to allow her slender fingers access.

"Dr. Quinzel, are you all right?"

"Hah; I ain't the one with my insides hangin' out."

"Why are you doing this?" Batman asked the Joker, hoping he could get the clown to chatter on while he figured out a plan of escape.

"That little bust of yours lit up the skies for miles; the police would have been there by the time the building collapsed if I hadn't blocked their route. In which case they would have found you quite incapacitated, and while they would certainly have taken you for medical attention, they would also have arrested you and unmasked you. And where's the fun in that?"

"I could have tried to hold them off until you woke up, but with your gizmos out of commission as well as your leg, on the off chance you did wake up before you bled to death, odds were long on you getting anywhere useful, and especially anywhere that wouldn't make you surrender your identity in exchange for patching you up.

"Whereas I don't care who you are under that mask, and want you to stick around to play the game. So I brought you here to have Harley put you back together again. Just sit back and relax, Bats, she does good work."

"Lucky for you all doctors at Arkham are required to have training in trauma surgery."

"Wait, what did he just call you?"

"Harley," Dr. Quinzel answered, "Harley Quinn." She grinned at the Joker.

"You like giving your therapists pet names, Joker?"

"No, I usually like killing them, but Harley was just so very...talented. I couldn't let it go to waste." Dr. Quinzel giggled.

"What has he done to you?"

"Not nearly as much as she's done to me," the Joker countered. He unbuttoned his vest and shirt, revealing a deep cut running up his side that had been sewn up with neat little sutures.

"Do you actually want me to believe she tied _you_ up in that warehouse three weeks ago and tortured you?"

"I wouldn't use the word torture; that makes it sound like I didn't enjoy it. I'd gotten so used to playing with the boys that when I took a turn with kitten here, I got her a little over-excited."

"Hmpf," Dr. Quinzel said as she finished, "I shoulda let you bleed longer, take the fight out of you."

"Oh, come one now, Harley, you can't say I haven't made up for it, hmm?" the Joker snaked his arm around her. Dr Quinzel crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in such a way that made it clear she'd relent if given enough attention. The Joker fussed over her a bit more until she turned and let him kiss her.

"Please stop," Batman said as he fought down the contents of his stomach.

"Everyone's a critic," Harley sighed. The Joker laughed.

Batman looked at the Joker. "I am going to find out what you've done to her, and then I am going to make you regret it."

The Joker sighed and kneeled down next to Batman, putting on a fatherly expression. "Someday, if you're lucky, you'll meet someone who's as delightfully dysfunctional as you are, who takes interest in your hobbies and who likes you for who _you _are, not whoever you pretend to be when you're not wearing that mask. And if you do, then you'll understand." Batman strained at his bonds. The Joker got up and went over to Harley. "We'd best be off: his ride will be here shortly."

"Stay off that leg for a week at least," Harley instructed him, "preferably three! I MEAN IT!"

"Best do as she says, trust me on that." The Joker shook his head. "By the way, the Chechen liked to keep all his eggs in one basket, as they say, and the men I… inherited from him never learned different. That was his stock you incinerated, and he had all the best goodies. It's gonna take me forever to replace that stuff, but you sure put on one helluva show!" the Joker's laughter echoed through the empty building as he left.

The drug-induced fog that still hovered in Batman's brain altered his perception of time. He was still puzzling over what to do next when Commissioner  
Gordon arrived. He sighed and looked down at the vigilante. "The Joker called me at home asking for some "pest control." Please tell me you weren't involved in that...war zone down on 32nd."

"All right, then, I won't tell you."

Gordon shook his head. Then he looked over at an IV line Batman hadn't noticed. It was empty, Harley must have had him hooked up to something before he'd woken up. Gordon sniffed the bag. "Heroine." He pulled a small re-sealable bag out of his pocket and squeezed a drop from the IV bag into it, then burst a bubble of some chemical inside. The chemical mixed with the IV substance and turned bright orange. "Potent and not cut with anything nasty; hospital grade but likely illicit in origin. Feeling no pain?"

"And too doped up to fight back."

"To top it off, the gang members we arrested at the warehouse are claiming they were involved in a turf war with Maroni's men, and said you came and left. No one mentioned you were in the building or that you were injured: the Joker's covering for you. Finding you so well taken care of worries the hell out of me."

"You heard what the Joker said when I interrogated him: he enjoys having me around to play with. In a strange way, I think I can trust him, at least when my life is at stake. Dr. Quinzel may have effected his choice, though."

"You saw her?"

"That's her handywork," Batman indicated the stitches, "the Joker claims she's come to him willingly, even indicated they were involved in consensual rough play three weeks ago. He's certainly cut deep enough to account for the amount of blood we found, and the stitches he had looked just like these, but I'm still not convinced."

"We can puzzle over it after I've gotten you somewhere safe. I brought a van, as per the Joker's cryptic instructions, and he seems to have left you a wheelchair."

"I'm going to have a few weeks to puzzle over this while I recover."

"And I have a feeling they are going to be very quiet weeks."


	2. Chapter 2

Commissioner Gordon braced himself as he drove up to the foreboding grey building

Once the Commissioner was gone, John turned to Dr. Quinzel and said "I still think you give Crane too much of that stuff. Why don't you just transfer him to the regular treatment program? He won't be any trouble; not if trouble means coming back here."

"We can't give him antipsychotics; he needs a dose so high it leaves him in a stupor. There are too many patients over there who want to harm him. It's a security risk I'm not willing to take. I'm also not convinced Crane won't relapse once he's transferred; he's a known flight risk. Don't question me again."

John shook his head but said nothing more.

Dr. Quinzel pressed the button on the speaker that allowed her to communicate with the patient inside the padded cell. "You asked to see me?"

"Won't you come in?" the Joker asked, then shot her a fiery look.

"If you're lonely, you should stop terrorizing Dr. Crane, and maybe he'll consent to move back to the cell next to yours. It is against policy for staff to socialize with patients, as you know perfectly well."

"You think I don't know anything about you, and that's the way you like it," the Joker chuckled. "Because nobody should know that your 'friends' are all a bunch of girls you've terrorized into submission since high school. That you live alone, without even so much as a goldfish to keep you company, and every man you've ever so much as had coffee with ran screaming, because you try to control them and they don't want any of it. You were top of your class, always got the best grades, best at everything you ever did. Little Miss Perfect." The Joker giggled. "You're just like the Bat; you want the world to be nice and neat and orderly. You can't stand the idea of losing control."

Harley had severe anti-social tendencies, or, to put it in the vernacular, she was a sociopath. She didn't feel a need to kill, but she felt absolutely no empathy for other people. The fact that she was soon to be a psychologist was a testament to careful hiding. Her father had shown her how; he had been a serial killer, and no one had ever caught him. He had died a free man, with Harley the only one knowing what he had done. She had taken everything she had learned from him and perfected it to an even greater degree. No one had any idea what she was, not even the slightest hint. Well, no one but the Joker; he'd seen her for what she was the moment he'd set eyes on her. The things he said to her might seem odd or cryptic or unsettling to others, but she knew they were genuine invitations to come play with him. She was sorely tempted, but she didn't like telling him so; not yet.

Dr Quinzel reached for her radio and called the guard in the monitoring room. "Come check up on Dr. Crane." She turned to the Joker. "I think the analysis should be left to me," she countered dismissively.

"Then tell me, doctor, what would happen if you wore two different shoes one day? Or decided on a whim to turn left instead of right?" The Joker moved to press himself against the plexiglass. Dr. Quinzel realized she was pressed against the other side. "What would happen if the perfect miss doctor wasn't in control anymore?" Harleen closed her eyes. She could feel the warmth from the Joker's body through the protective plexiglass. "I sense a harlequin of doubt," Joker whispered, then let out a low, quiet laugh. A voice in her head called her to open the door, go in, let the Joker out of his strait jacket, strip him down, and then…

She heard the guard from the surveillance room approaching. She backed away from the cell door and composed herself. When she looked up, Joker was sitting in the back of his cell, as if he'd never moved. She joined the guard outside Crane's cell. He looked agitated. "Are you all right, Jonathan?"

"Why did you go over there alone?! You're _never _supposed to interact with maximum security patients unsupervised!"

"And you should know; you wrote the protocol. Then violated it repeatedly to experiment on your patients."

"Look where it got me," Crane answered sardonically.

"Your concerns are noted, Jonathan, thank you."

Crane shook his head. "The hole is getting bigger…the hole in your head…" Crane seemed to settle down, so Dr. Quinzel left him.

"I'm taking the footage of my conversation with Mr. J for analysis," Dr. Quinzel told the guard. It was a routine request, so the guard thought nothing of giving it to her. Dr. Quinzel was very careful about removing evidence of any…questionable behaviour on her part; she'd been doing it since volunteering at the retirement home in high school, after getting one of the computer geeks to show her how.

The Joker had sported mysterious bruises on more than one occasion. He always made up the most ridiculous stories to explain how he'd gotten them; stampeding armadillos, tragic pogo-stick accidents (he was never allowed anything of the sort). She'd managed arrange a long enough distraction to punish him severely after his brazen attempt to communicate with Commissioner Gordon. They both knew he was pushing her buttons on purpose. He seemed to enjoy their little sessions as much as she did. It was so hard to find a man who would let her hurt him as much as she wanted. The good ones always seemed to be under 24-hour surveillance, and guards could only be distracted for so long.

She wanted so desperately for him to be declared sufficiently rehabilitated to have private therapy sessions with her. The things they'd talk about…the things they could do… oh, Harleen creamed herself thinking about it. The Joker's come-on's were more ridiculous that salacious, she longed to utter her own.

Once she replaced the incriminating video footage, the original was going in her private collection.

This time he'd gone too far. While Dr. Quinzel was escorting the Joker to the exercise yard, along with the mandatory two nurses and four guards, he managed to get out of his strait jacket. He then grabbed her and –never was the term more appropriate- _stole _a kiss in front of everyone. She'd immediately sent him to solitary. He would stay there for the required length of time and she would not contact him while he was there. How _dare _he? And in the morning, when he knew damn well she liked to get off just after she got off. Now she was going to be preoccupied with him all day, and next to nothing would get done. Ah, well, his seclusion was probably for the best; she was getting far too infatuated with him. If he wanted to engage her in a battle of wills, she was ready, and she would play to win.

She got the call at 3 in the morning exactly; the Joker had escaped from solitary. Which meant the bastard had planned it all along, and wanted her to know it. He was still somewhere in Arkham, so she hurried over to do her professional duty and try to coax him back to maximum security. She knew it was pointless, of course, if he wanted to get out, he would. And she had a feeling he wanted out. She parked without bothering to check the lines; there was hardly anyone in the lot anyhow, and hurried up to the gate to swipe herself in. Just as the light on the security panel turned green, the door swung open. She barely had time to block the door with her hands, narrowly avoiding it smacking her in the face. She fell to the ground, momentarily stunned, but struggled to her feet and chased the white blur that ran past. The Joker headed straight for the woods beside the road. She ran in after him. As soon as she was beyond the view of the unblinking eyes of Arkham's surveillance system, she collided face-first with his chest. Warm arms held her tightly. She lifted her head up and received a fierce kiss. A bit off she heard an explosion, but right now she didn't care.

"You, are evil. Eeee-vil. Teasing me all day long…do you have any idea what kind of blue balls I get wearing a straight jacket while you prance around in those cute little skirt suits all day?" She laughed darkly and leaned to kiss him again, but he let her go and he turned to leave.

"Where are you going?!" she whispered.

"I'm not about to get caught here with my pants down," Harleen groaned at the horrible pun.

"Here, take these!" the Joker looked down at the bottle of antidepressants she'd pressed into his hand. "Keep taking them; you know they're helping! Promise you'll take care of yourself…" she ran her fingers through his hair, "I MEAN it!" she wrenched him down to eye level by his hair to drive the point home. He kissed her once more and headed back to the road.

She followed him a bit, and heard a van pull up. A goon in a clown mask helped the Joker into the van. The goon spotted Harleen. "What about her, boss?"

"Leave her." The Joker's words were firm. The goon slammed the van door shut, and the sound seemed to echo in Harleen's mind. The van screeched as it took off back down the road.

Harleen could hear guard dogs baying as the guards widened their search to outside the asylum. She rumpled herself a bit more and got out into plain sight, lest the dogs find her. She raised her hands as spotlights blinded her. "He's gone; I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him."

"Christ, Dr. Quinzel, why did you even try? You're lucky he didn't slit your throat!" one of the guards called to her

"I didn't think, I just reacted," she explained.

"Well, since you're here, you can help us fill out the paperwork and inform the police…this is gonna be a bitch of a night…or what's left of it."

While Batman and Gotham's finest scoured the city, on the other side of town, Mandy was really getting it from Pete.

"I told you one-fifty, bitch!"

"Ain't nobody gonna pay that much for me!"

"Well they better, or I'm gonna mess you up so bad you'll be the cheapest ho in town!"

"You go right ahead! It's yo' money!"

"That's it! This city's full o' ho's! You think I need you? You think you're worth _anything_? I'm gonna cut you up into little pieces and show you to the other girls! Nobody messes with me!" he pulled out his knife and reached for her.

"Excuse me for interrupting this delightful conversation-"

"You gotta be plain stupid to get involved with this pal," Pete said, pulling out his gun before turning around, still wielding the knife, "and you gonna die stupid – oh GOD!" he dropped his weapons in terror, "p-please, mister Joker, I didn't know it was you…or I never would've said…oh god, don't kill me, please!" Pete backed away as the Joker advanced and casually picked up the knife he'd dropped. "Hey, come on, now; you want girls? I got girls, real nice girls!"

"I know." The Joker pinned Pete to the wooden fence behind him with the knife. "Shut up." He turned to Mandy, "Hello, Amanda."

Mandy shook her head. "Nobody calls me that." The rough accent she normally used vanished the instant she laid eyes on him. All the years of life walking the streets melted away when she saw him, and she became a naïve 16-year-old again, seeing the boy with the greasy hair for the first time.

"Nobody but me. Are you armed?"

"No; that's what he's for," she indicated Pete, who was stifling moans of agony.

"And how's that working out for you?"

"Wait, was that a joke? Did you just make a funny?"

"I believe it was an ironic question."

Mandy laughed and shook her head. "Arkham really has changed you."

"Which brings us to my visit today. I'm told Scarecrow's drug lab is nearby; where is it?"

Mandy sighed, "I should have known this was business. This way," she tiled her head in the direction she wanted to go.

The Joker pulled the knife out of Pete's shoulder then threw the pimp at his henchmen. "Tie him up and bring him."

Mandy brought the Joker and his henchmen over a couple of blocks by a route that ensured they wouldn't be seen. She stopped at the entrance to a disused building in a part of town that had had light industry in more prosperous times. "This is it. People still keep away; nobody liked that creepster, and the cops never found it…Batman didn't seem to care where it was, as long as Crane was locked up. I'd be careful going in, I'm sure he's got the whole place booby-trapped with that fear gas of his."

"Scarecrow and I had a nice heart-to-heart, and he told me all about his lab." The Joker produced a key. He punched in the security code and the system blinked green. He unlocked the door. "But, juuuuuust in case, let's have him walk in first," the Joker grabbed Pete and shoved him in ahead of the group. Once inside, the Joker disarmed a trap before turning on the lights. The lab had been abandoned after Batman had caught Scarecrow, and a fine layer of dust had settled over the equipment. "You two; take stock of the chemicals. See if you can find anything on this list;" he handed one of his lackeys a list scrawled in somewhat erratic handwriting. Mandy thought she saw some of the i's dotted with smiley faces. Mandy recognized the two men from when the lab was operated by Dr. Crane; they weren't your average goons, they had started out in meth labs and had worked their way up. They were two the Igors that kept drugs flowing through Gotham, or had, before Batman had come along.

The Joker shut the door quietly and securely before moving deeper into the lab. Mandy followed closely behind. He checked over equipment that Mandy was almost certain he barely understood. She couldn't imagine what he was planning; he'd never concocted so much as a batch of gunpowder before; not that there was any need: weaponry and explosives were cheap and plentiful in Gotham's underworld. The Joker seemed to find what he was looking for.

"Help me get this cleaned off; be careful, it's delicate."

"I think I can handle it." Mandy looked around and found a box of 'Chemwipes.' Good enough. She carefully began dusting off glassware. She watched as the Joker used a can of compressed air to clean the electronics. "Where have you been?" she asked suddenly, making sure to speak low enough that no one else could hear.

"Arkham," he answered.

"That's not what I mean and you know it. You just disappeared after…the last time."

"You told me to leave."

"I told you to leave me alone; I didn't mean 'drop off the face of the earth for a couple of years.'"

"I left you alone; why does it matter where I went?" Many knew from the look in his eyes that he really didn't understand why it would matter to her.

"Because I was worried! That's what people do when someone they know vanishes without a trace: they worry. They try to find out what happened, they go looking for the missing person. It's upsetting."

"I'm always upsetting you." The Joker's tone was flat, but tinged with frustration.

"And then, you came back, and you were wearing that make-up, and robbing banks –robbing banks! And it didn't make any sense; you don't care about money! You could have made thousands of times what you stole by being a hit-man. There isn't a don or a boss or a ringleader anywhere in this city who could stop you; you could run this town. But you never cared about any of that. And then I see you all over the news, saying those things…did you really mean them?"

"Yes."

"You…really believe all that?"

The Joker began to answer, then hesitated. "I'm…not sure anymore." He clutched his head and began to pace. "It's…it's all fffffffuzzy…" he started to giggle. "They made it all blurry…" he snickered some more.

"Did they hurt you at Arkham?" Mandy asked.

"Not enough. She had to be so…careful…" He leaned over the desk, and seemed to be desperately searching his mind for something. "I couldn't touch, I couldn't touch, I couldn't touch…" Mandy brushed the hair out of his face. Their eyes locked. She smiled sweetly. "Oh, you just don't learn," he grabbed her by the hair. "Take him off to someplace where he won't contaminate the lab," he instructed the thugs standing around idly, looking like a bunch of bulls in a china shop. "I need some privacy." The thugs chuckled lewdly as they collected Pete and watched Mandy be dragged off.

"Why do you keep me alive?" she asked him "I know way too much, way more than I should."

"You're discrete, loyal and well-informed. I need you."

Mandy laughed dryly. "You got a funny way of showing it."

The Joker reached over and stroked her face. "You have a lot of new scars, but you're still beautiful to me, Amanda. I'll always remember the way you were." She was scarred and disfigured from years of abuse at the hands of her pimps and clients, but the Joker had known her for years, long before her hard life had taken its toll.

"Stop. Please stop! Just tell me what you want." The Joker had learned long ago the Mandy responded better to compliments than to threats, but he had no idea how kind words from him affected her. He'd broken her heart so many times, even more times than he'd beaten her. She knew he felt nothing, deep down, but when he said things like that, it was so easy to forget. Anything was preferable to his kindness.

The Joker picked up his clothes and began to dress. "Now Amanda, this is important. I need you to listen." Mandy lay quietly. "We are going to go out, and I am going to show you how to kill with a knife." Mandy opened her mouth to protest, but a gesture from the Joker silenced her. He had tried to teach her the art of homicide by massive internal trauma repeatedly, and she had obstinately refused; she was a whore, not a killer. "You are not safe and one of these days you really are going to end up in itty bitty pieces. But you'll like it, I promise. You just need a man to slaughter." The Joker laughed and the twisted pun on her name. "Then, afterwards, you're gonna go to the police, and tell them I did it. Tell them I just wandered over and cut him up. I'll make sure mine are the only prints on the knife, and nobody will say different. And then tell them what we did."

"You…want me to tell them about us?"

"You tell them you never saw me before in your life, is that clear?" Mandy nodded. "No, tell them I just wandered over, killed your pimp for no apparent reason…then fucked you like an animal. I've left plenty enough evidence of that. Feel free to get creative in the telling."

Mandy shrugged. "You got it." Lying to police was a mandatory skill for streetwalkers.

The Joker cracked a predatory smile. "That should get her attention."

"_Gotham is once again in the grip of fear: the Joker has escaped!"_ the news reporter announced in her usual impartial tone, a grinning portrait of the Joker above and to the right of her, _"Police officials have confirmed members of the Joker's gang broke into Arkham Asylum early this morning and freed him."_

The tv cut to Commissioner Gordon having a press conference. _"I must regretfully confirm that yes, the Joker is currently at large, and all of Gotham P.D. is on high alert. Furthermore, the mayor has authorised me to offer a reward of 5,000 for any confirmed Joker sightings promptly reported to the police, which will become 5,000,000 if the Joker is apprehended. We will not, I repeat NOT allow this menace to terrorize the city once again."_

"Hmph, sounds about right for the amount of damage they'll avoid if they catch him," Dr. Quinzel said, watching the news over a steaming cup of coffee, "it might actually _save _money if they can get him before he blows up any buildings."

Commissioner Gordon sorted out which reporter he would answer first. _"Commissioner, is it true the Joker has already claimed his first victim?"_

"_I'm afraid that is correct: a pimp known as Pete Martin was found dead early this morning at the corner of Howe and 17__th__ street. The Joker also…assaulted a prostitute that was with the man."_

Dr. Quinzel flipped around the channel to see if any of the other stations were giving more details. One was actually _interviewing _the hooker. The angry red marks were clear on the woman's neck even through the cameraman's shaky work. "Miss Mandy, can you tell us about your traumatic experience?" the reporter asked.

"What trauma?"

"_But you witnessed the brutal murder of a colleague before being violently assaulted,"_ the reporter's obvious leading questions turned Dr. Quinzel's stomach. Parasite.

"_Pete wasn't exactly a saint, and in my line of work, there's no such thing as 'assault…' if the price is right."_

"_Are you saying the Joker…paid for services rendered?"_

"_I'm alive. Given the circumstances, I consider that payment enough."_

"_Miss Mandy, what comments do you have about your experience?"_

The hooker looked into the camera and grinned. _"He wasn't half bad."_

"What?" Harleen asked in a furious tone as she throttled her coffee cup. She glowered at the grinning face on the screen as she shook with rage. "That…WHORE!" If she ever got her hands on that man…

"Dr. Quinzel," Commissioner Gordon greeted her when she arrived at the station, "We were going to call you."

"I thought I'd save you the trouble. Here's Mr. J's file," she handed it over. "I want to assure you I will help in any way I can."

"Five bodies, five Joker sightings: Pete Martin found at Howe and 17th, Frankie Ingles at Atwood and 21st, Nancy Derek at Lars and 9th, Marty Evans at Elm and 14th. All at exactly 2:23 in the morning. Streetwalkers, pimps and street-level dealers; small-time low-lifes: not the Joker's usual fare. If we assume, as the eyewitness account suggested, that the first killing was done hastily and not planned, but the location where the body was found was "

"I know, a child could figure it out; he's spelling out my name, and the victims' names spell 'find me.'"

"Yes. Which means he's going to strike on 26th street next, but we don't know whether he'll choose Escher, Eckhart or Elm again. And there's more: Marty Evans wasn't stabbed to death; he was poisoned." The commissioner passed a crime scene photo to Dr. Quinzel.

"Died with a smile on his face," she said, shaking her head. The unfortunate man bore a manic grin.

"This is no time to be droll, Doctor. Pathology found an unknown toxin in his system. The closest thing we found to it was Felinax."

"The antidepressant I had the Joker on," Dr. Quinzel answered, stating what everyone already knew.

"Anything you can tell us will help."

"Felinax actually contains two drugs: the first counteracts chemical changes in the brain linked to depression. The second is activated by violent impulses. When the patient gets an urge behave aggressively, it stimulates parts of the brain known to cause bliss and complacency. Simply put; the subject loses all interest in violent behaviour in a rush of pleasant feelings. Unfortunately, there is a risk of side effects, such as uncontrollable laughter, which is why it is only used of very serious cases, and is not available to the general public."

"And the Joker insisted on knowing how it worked inside and out."

"Oh god! What have I done?"

"Please, Doctor; we need to know where he'll appear next. Which street will he choose?"

Dr. Quinzel shook her head. "I'm sorry, he's incredibly complicated and I was barely able to scratch the surface of his mind. He was just too dangerous to do full sessions with; you have to understand! And…I'm not a forensic psychologist, Commissioner; this sort of reconstruction is not my expertise. I can try to work it out, but, I'm afraid I can't make any promises."

"Our people are completely stumped; you know him better than anyone. Please try."

Dr. Quinzel looked over everything the Commissioner had gathered, thinking hard. "Eckhart."

"You think he'll choose there?"

Dr. Quinzel shrugged. "It sounds funny."

"It's all we've got." Gordon turned to the police behind him. "I want eyes all over Eckhart and 26th. I want patrols up and down 26th, Eckhart, Elm and Escher, in that order."

"If that is all, Commissioner, I'd like to go home; I think I need to lie down."

"I want you escorted at all times, Dr. Quinzel; this could well be a sick joke, and your murder the punchline."

"Of course."

Oh, how little the Commissioner knew: this time the joke was on the Gotham P.D. Late that night, Harleen packed a bag. She told the nice police officers she couldn't sleep and wanted to go somewhere safer and less likely to be staked out by the Joker and his men. She was quietly preparing, waiting for the right moment.

"Oh God, what is that?!" she asked, pointing out the window.

"What? Where?" the police officer rushed over and looked to where she was pointing.

"Down on the street; I just saw a man in a clown mask!"

"Damn! I don't see anything! Reeve, watch Dr. Quinzel. I'll go down and secure the way to the car; we're getting out of here now."

Harleen waited until the other cop was out of earshot then said, "is someone in the hall?" The police officer turned towards the door, and Harleen struck him over the head at just the right place with a blackjack. He dropped like a stone. Harleen picked up her bag, walked around him and left the building. Once out, she shot the other officer from behind with a taser, and kept going.

She didn't have very far to go; Young and 14th was only a few blocks from her house. She casually walked over to the appointed intersection. The police could scour Eckhart and Elm and Escher and 26th all they wanted: they wouldn't find anything. The Joker never called her Harleen Quinzel, and she had known from the start that wasn't what he was spelling. Something more subtle would have been appreciated, of course, and she didn't want the world knowing the Joker had a pet name for her. At exactly 2:23, a van pulled up.

"I don't believe it; right where he said you'd be," the thug who opened the door said.

"Take me to him."

The thug offered Harleen his hand and helped her in. "Not scared or nothin.' You gotta be as crazy as he is," he shook his head.

"Just step on it. The police will be missing me any minute now."

They took her to an old abandoned warehouse. "Nice digs," she quipped.

"He's back here," one of the thugs pointed to a back room. They were trying to suppress their laughter; everyone knew what came next.

Harleen took great, hurried steps, eating up the distance to the back room. The door opened, and the Joker beckoned her in. She entered, and the locked the door behind her. "Harley," he said, holding her arms out. She approached, and slugged him with her bag. A blunt object inside connected neatly with his jaw and he went down.

"You doity rat!" she screamed, and then kicked him in the kidney, "you think I'm just gonna fo'give yeh fo' messin wit' me?!"

"Ohhhh, hohoh," the Joker groaned as he tried to roll over and get on his knees.

While the Joker tried to clear his head, Harley grabbed some nearby rope, then struck him across the head with blackjack just hard enough to stun him. She kicked him in the top of the hip, sending him onto his back again, and then fastened his wrists. "I have been wantin' the do this fo' months!" She tied his hands to a nearby shelf, about a foot and a half above his head. The shelf was metal and bolted to the wall, ensuring he couldn't struggle free, while the position she'd tied him up in was quite awkward, putting a great deal strain on his shoulder joints and back. There was no way he could find a comfortable position while he was tied up like that. She kneeled on his chest to make it that much worse.

"My, but they do teach pixies some useful knots," the Joker said, then laughed.

"Oh, ya 'tink I'm funny, do ya?"

He strained to get closer to her. "Hilarious."

She raked the skin behind his ear before looking around for something sharp. She didn't have to look far; an impressive variety of knives and various instruments of torture lay on the shelf. She looked back at the Joker: he was not wearing his usual makeup, he had recently shaved and his hair was washed. He was wearing a white shirt and drawstring pants. A quick tug confirmed he was going commando. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal excitement. He might was well have a bow on his head: he'd been gift-wrapped for her.

"Aw, don't stop; why'd you stop? I swear; you are _worst_ cock tease!"

She smacked him. "Sonofabitch! Ya planned this right from the start!"

He laughed. "I knew you'd do it if I got you mad enough. Now c'mon, choose your weapon!" Harley laughed, shook her head and undressed. Beneath her usual skirt suit she was wearing PVC negligee with a red-and-white harlequin pattern on it. "Oooooh, sexy _and_ stain repellent. Daddy like." She folded her suit neatly and put it up and away where it was unlikely to get blood on it, taking her time. The Joker squirmed impatiently. "C'mon, c'mon, c'monc'monc'mon!"

She looked over at him and smiled. "You got a favourite?"

"Naw, the cops confiscated all my best stuff when Gordon arrested me."

She picked up a scalpel and came back over him. "It might take a little while for the pain to register." She made a neat cut down his side. He moaned as the blood started to flow. She made another, deeper cut just above his groin. He howled with pleasure.

"Oh, you're even better than I imagined," the Joker's breathing was heavy now, "but uh, if you want in on this action," he made a quick thrust with his hips, "you'd better hurry."

"Next time, cattle prod," she told him once she caught her breath.

He kissed her with a fiery passion. "I _love_ the way you think."

She slipped on the blood that was pooling on the floor as she tried to get up. "Hmf; I better patch you up, or there ain't gonna be a next time." She opened up the first aid kit on the wall. There was plenty of gauze and bandages, but no suture thread or needles. "Lucky I came prepared." She went and got her bag. She took out the necessary items, as well as some novocaine. She put on some latex gloves and applied the novocaine to the skin around the Joker's wounds. "This should make the pain just bearable…for you, anyway."

When she finished stitching up the Joker, he was ready for more. "Care for seconds?" he asked.

"No. You'll pull your stitches. And you better not have given me something you picked up from that hooker, or I swear to God I'll inject you with the worst strain of syphilis I can get my hands on."

"Deal. But she's clean and so am I."

"Glad you're so confident. Now try not to move too much." She untied the rope and slowly helped the Joker to his feet.

"What else have you got in that bag?" he asked as she retrieved some more practical underwear from it.

"Presents," she answered smugly. Once she was dressed, she produced a black case and something wrapped in a wet towel. "Ah," she said as the Joker began to unwrap the towel, "not until you want something found."

"What is it?"

"The transmitter I found in my cell phone. And this," she said, opening the case, "is equipment to help you measure micro-doses more accurately."

The Joker grinned appreciatively. He took the towel-wrapped package from Harley. "What say we leave this place for Gordon to puzzle over?"

She followed him out. The Joker's thugs all deadpanned at the sight of his cut and bloody clothes. "I don't even wanna know," one of them said.

"We're leaving," he ordered. She helped him into the van, and eased him into his seat. None of the henchmen said anything; they knew better.

The Joker had Harley living like a queen, or like she had always pictured she'd live if she were queen. Once she'd gotten a more suitable hide-out set up (she was _not_ staying in that lab full of God-knows-what-all fumes), she introduced the Joker to pranks. She was delighted when he took her suggestion to paint the town literally; the area around the hide-out (and several blocks surrounding it lop-sidedly) were now brightly coloured. The police had only bothered to do a very basic check of the area, to the Joker and Harley's infinite amusement. The police just assumed the Joker had vanished off to someplace else.

The Joker didn't let Harley see too much of his more felonious activities, at least not yet. When she went out with him, he disguised her as one of his goons and hid her among such a number of his actual followers that no one noticed she was a woman. She was awestruck by the precision and finesse he put into planning and executing everything he did, letting the police get tantalisingly close to him while never being in any real danger of capture. He also seemed to know how to avoid Batman when he wanted to, as the hooded vigilante never once made an appearance while she was out with the Joker.

The Joker's interest in her varied wildly from day to day. Some days they never made it out of the bedroom. On others, the Joker was so focused on this or that project that he forgot about her completely. The toxin that made people laugh themselves to death, "Joker venom," as he called it, progressed much more rapidly once she showed him how to test it more accurately. He rounded up test subjects no one would miss, and also exposed random passers-by to it on occasion.

After an exceptionally long period of neglect, Harley was adamant about coming along on the latest heist. The Joker needed more chemicals for his experimental toxin and was still keeping things quiet, which meant raiding them for some shady operation or other. This was always dangerous and Harley had already patched up a couple of the Joker's men who had gotten careless or been unlucky on previous raids. A few men had died. Knowing the danger, Harley armed herself and took no chances. The Joker instructed everyone to shoot anyone who even looked at her funny. One of the thugs then shot another whom he accused of doing just that, resulting in much guffawing from everyone else. It was funny, but Harley still complained about having to do first aid on the way to their target.

The people at the chemical depot, while well-armed, got the point after a couple of them were killed. They retreated hastily, abandoning their dead. While the goons hunted down the necessary chemicals, Harley tied the corpses left behind to a system of winches used to move heavy barrels of hazardous material, turning the cadavers into gruesome marionettes. The Joker nearly killed himself laughing as he watched the morbid puppet show she made out of them. As they left, he pulled her close. "Baby, I like your style!"

He kissed and groped her all the way back to the hideout. He sent the goons to the lab to drop off the chemicals they'd stolen, leaving her alone with him. He pulled a knife on her before the door was finished closing. "I'm bored with the old routine, let's try something new."

"I can't stop you, but don't expect me to do any of those little things you like," Harley answered coldly.

"How about I kill you and fuck your corpse?"

"I expect that would get boring very quickly." The Joker backhanded her hard enough to send her sprawling. "I sense a lot of anger was behind that; let's work through it, shall we?" She gathered herself and did a back flip, connecting the toe of her boot to his jaw as she did. His teeth clacked together loudly and he was knocked off balance. She grabbed a nearby chair and readied herself for his next attack. The Joker was stronger and faster than her, but she was more agile. If she could keep him from thinking very far ahead, she might just live through this.

It looked like she'd gotten lucky: the Joker was just reacting to her and coming back with a different plan of attack. She wasn't eliminating the possibility that he was toying with her, though, and she kept her distance. They bandied back and forth for a bit, neither of them getting anywhere. They had play fought a few times and each knew the other's moves well enough to make a stalemate. If this continued, the Joker would wear her down and he would win. Harley took an insane gamble: she decided to try and provoke him. "Is this the madman that terrorised Gotham? The anarchist that brought the city to its knees? You seem more like a scared little boy to me."

"Oh, do tell," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Lemme guess: when you were four, your dad killed your pet hamster with a kitchen knife and made you watch." Harley dodged a somewhat half-hearted stab. "No? How about…someone you trusted made you kill your puppy when you were five?" The Joker's attacks became more in earnest. "And they told you to never love anything, because it's a liability. Another step in the programming to make you into a perfect killer. But they made you to well, and you killed them, and destroyed everything around you, and just carried on your path of destruction. So now you're being a good little boy and getting rid of your liability."

The Joker's attacks became unsteady. Harley was stirring up things buried deep in the Joker's soul. Ironically enough, she was doing her job. She shimmied up a pole and jumped onto a beam supporting the ceiling, out of the Joker's reach. He gazed up at her. It was the look of a predator trying to figure out how to get its prey. "And don't tell me you don't think I'm special. If I were just a game, you wouldn't be hiding me; you'd want to show the whole world how you'd twisted yet another soul to your warped way of thinking. You'd get me to mow down the mayor's family, or blow up a daycare, and make sure everybody saw me do it."

"You'd do that stuff anyway," the Joker countered, still circling.

"Nobody knows that but you. You won't even tell me half of what you're doing, because you don't want me to be an accessory. You're _protecting _me."

"Why are you still here? Go home." She'd hit a tender spot, and now the beast was retreating.

"Go _home_?! To what? My empty apartment? To a life of pretending to be normal, acting like I feel what other people feel, making sure I react to everything the way I'm supposed to? How the hell could I ever go back to that?" She climbed back down again. "Being here, with you, for the first time in my life, I felt free. I've laughed more since I met you than I think I have in my whole life. You make me feel things I never thought I was capable of feeling!" She stroked his face affectionately; he stared back at her, puzzled. "I can't go back; I don't want to! I'd live a shadow of a life. That ain't livin.'" She looked at him in earnest. "I'd rather die than go back." She guided the hand he held the knife in to her throat. "I ain't a puppy: I get to decide what happens to me, and I'm stayin.' So it's up to you: what would you rather do?"

The Joker stared at her a moment. She could almost see the storm of thoughts and feelings going on in his mind. Then, he closed his eyes, and when he looked at her again, he bore an expression she'd never seen before. No one had ever looked at her that way and it made her feel…strange. He put the knife away and picked her up. He carried her up to their makeshift bedroom and…made love to her. It was not their usual furious, erotic bedroom activities, it was slow and sensual and intimate. And now she truly understood what it meant to be _intimate_. When they were done, he pulled her close and held on to her as if for dear life.

She stirred when he got up in the middle of the night. "Go back to sleep," he insisted. He kissed her head, and she gave him a dubious look. "I'm just going out for a bit," he assured her, "I'll be back later." He dressed and left quietly. She waited for him for a while but fell asleep again.

She was mildly surprised to wake up the next day: she had half-expected the Joker to strangle her while she slept. Then she heard a strange gibbering noise coming from somewhere else in the building. She dressed hurriedly and went to track down the source of the sound. She deadpanned at what she found: inside a makeshift cage, a pair of hyenas circled, slavering and lunging at anyone who got too close. The Joker stood before the scene, grinning at her with a twisted approximation of a boyish smile. She squealed in delight and lunged towards him, clinging to his waist by her legs. The hyenas gibbered again. Harley knew the Joker had gotten the beasts as a present for her. She didn't care that they were vicious animals waiting to tear out her throat: _he _had gotten _her _a_ present. _It was the greatest sign of affection he'd ever shown. She kissed him.

"Know anything about animal behaviour?" he asked when she was done.

"Some: they're pack animals, so they shouldn't be too hard to train. You gotta show 'em who's boss." One of the hyenas had worked its head out of the makeshift cage and was now snapping at them furiously. The Joker jabbed it with a cattle prod. It yipped and withdrew.

"Is that _my _cattle prod?" she asked.

"It was at hand," the Joker answered.

"Well, now it'll be for exclusive hyena use." The Joker looked a bit disappointed at this. "Have they been fed yet?" The Joker looked at his goons, who looked back and shrugged. "Well, don't just stand there; go get some meat!" The goons exchanged a glance with the Joker, who waved them off.

The acquisition of the hyenas turned out to be well-timed. Batman had begun raiding weapons caches around the city, and while he had only found Maroni's so far, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before one of the Joker's was hit. The Joker had moved all his heavy artillery away from the hideout and wasn't letting Harley venture out at all. She busied herself with studying the latest theories on animal behaviour modification and applying it to her new pets.

On the day Batman finally found the Joker's main weapons cache, the Joker brought Harley to watch the 'fireworks' via a series of CCTV cameras. He had blocked off all of the roads leading to the site with various vehicles set on fire, ensuring the police wouldn't interrupt. The Joker became increasingly displeased as the firefight progressed, not because Batman was destroying a staggering amount of his weaponry, but because the über-napalm the Bat was using was knocking out the CCTV. Losing patience, the Joker decided to head over himself. Harley convinced him to bring her along.

The men at the makeshift armoury had suffered little more than bumps and scrapes. A few had concussions, burns or other injuries related to being too close to a blast. All in all, it was nothing some first aid couldn't handle, and Harley was content to leave that to the goons who knew how. Everyone was whooping and cheering, however, as it appeared Batman was somewhere under the rubble of the collapsed building.

"Find him," the Joker ordered sharply, "NOW." Every able-bodied man began a desperate search until three very burly men were finally able to pull the heavily-armoured vigilante from the rubble. Batman was bleeding profusely from a deep wound on his leg. "Get him in the van. Harley," the Joker waved to her, but she was already on her way.

Harley had come prepared to deal with severe injuries, and had all the tools she needed. She did what she could to stop the bleeding, but the cut was very narrow and any sort of surgery was impossible with only the small gap in Batman's armour. "I've bought us some time, but I need better access to his leg," she told the Joker when he joined her in the van, "if you want to bother saving him."

The Joker thought it over for a moment. "Hell; why not?" Then he instructed the driver on where to go.

Harley listened to the conversation between Batman and the Joker with as much attention as she could spare. She knew the way the Joker interacted with Batman was an important part of the Joker's identity. She was frustrated by how much attention Batman was giving her, and knew the Joker wasn't pleased, either. Her irritation bled through and made her speak sharply to both of them. She couldn't stay angry at the Joker for long, though, as Batman's questions reminded her why she'd gone to the Joker in the first place. She blushed when the Joker proudly showed off the cuts she'd given him weeks before. She found herself a bit jealous of the attention the Joker was giving Batman, and couldn't resist playing the pouting girlfriend. Harley had to fight desperately to keep from laughing as Batman continuously accused the Joker of manipulating her; the heroine she'd given him for the pain was probably interfering with his logic.

When she and the Joker got back to their hideout, they both had a good, long laugh at Batman's expense. Then the Joker looked at her with that intense gaze of his, the one that drove away every last shred of her reason. The Joker could make her do anything when he looked at her that way. Some said the Joker's madness was contagious, but Harley saw it a different way: the Joker was like a wildfire, burning with such intensity that it ignited anything nearby. She'd caught fire long ago and was now burning along with him. She would follow him down any path he chose, no matter how destructive, until one or both of them burned out. She didn't care, she just knew her fate. It brought her some strange comfort.


	3. Chapter 3

"Gianni, how good of you to visit," Amanda said while pinching the man's cheek in a lurid parody of an over-affectionate aunt

Mandy, or Amanda as everyone now called her, opened the door to the delivery truck, ignoring the gymnastics her stomach was doing. She was one of the Joker's lieutenants now, and would do as he told her. Failure to do so was unimaginable; and God knows what he'd do to her if she refused. So when he said he wanted test subjects, Amanda rounded them up. Gotham had somewhere near a million homeless, and a few dozen disappeared every day, so the few more she took were going unnoticed. Amanda was careful to take only the most reticent and least accounted-for. She closed her eyes; she couldn't stand to watch the unfortunate souls being unloaded. She had drugged them all, because she couldn't bear their terror.

At least once a week, it was the same: she would walk the streets, posing as a hooker. She had long known the places where the most forgotten souls of the city liked to hide. After all, that's how she'd found _him._ She would wait for someone to pass her, then offer them booze or sex or a hot meal, making sure no one else saw her. Then she would lure her victim over to where the Joker's goons hid, waiting to knock their target unconscious. At that point, her job was done, which was fine by her. She was glad she wasn't strong enough to move these helpless men and women in and out of the truck.

The Joker's interest in Amanda had been strictly professional after that first day out of Arkham. He had probably turned to her because, as Amanda knew all too well, a starving man was little able to appreciate fine cuisine; he was more interested in getting what he needed and getting it fast. More delicate flavours needed to be savoured with a less ravenous hunger. In seven years of walking the streets, Amanda had had lonely clients fall for her on more than one occasion, and she knew the signs. The Joker wasn't simply obsessed with Harley; he was rearranging his life for her. In Amanda's opinion, he wasn't more than a hair's width away from carrying Harley's purse.

Amanda had pressed some members of the Joker's gang that he kept close, as they were usually around when Harley was there. They told her how 'fun' Harley was, how she domineered the 'whack-jobs' and had managed to make them less, well, 'whack.' Amanda had long known she would never win the Joker, but in her heart she had always hoped her steadfast loyalty would one day be rewarded. Too see her all her plans, as pathetic and desperate as they were, ripped to shreds by that nauseatingly perky little shrink was infuriating. She hated Harley as much as she was sure Harley hated her.

The Joker had enough sense to keep Harley and Amanda well-separated. Amanda suspected Harley knew little if anything about what she was doing for the Joker. It was a very small victory, especially since she would rather not be part of it.

The Joker was having quite a lot of difficulty refining his "Joker venom," not least of all because he couldn't settle on what he wanted it to do. He was terrible at keeping records, so he had to repeat his 'experiments' several times, until he remembered what a certain variation of the toxin would do. Amanda refused to watch these proceedings; she found any and every excuse to stay out of the lab while they were going on. Harley, she was told, had absolutely no difficulty watching and even performing them. Her education made her more qualified than anyone else to do them, anyway. Amanda had to grudgingly concede that Harley had put an end to the redundant experiments by cataloguing all variants of the experimental Joker venom, as well as their effects.

As soon as it was evident the Joker had no more need of her, Amanda went home. She buried herself under the covers on her bed and stifled her screams and sobs of pain and fear and rage and self-loathing. Why had she followed that man? Why had she taken him back into her life? She should have told him where the lab was and let him go on his merry way; after all, he'd had the decency to leave her behind; she should have left it that way. She sobbed uncontrollably. It killed her to see how _she _was changing _her man. _That was supposed to be Amanda's job. But how could she? She was just a dumb hooker; all she knew how to do was get people off. Harley was smart and pretty and ruthless and violent: everything the Joker wanted.

She got up at grabbed the shabby chair she sat on when she ate her meagre meals alone. For years, she'd waited for that man, getting older and more worn, just like everything in this shithole apartment. She slammed the chair into the old tv that rarely showed anything besides snow and static. What the hell had she been waiting for? Just what did she expect that man to do? Carry her off to some mansion? He had millions stashed away somewhere, she knew. She'd never seen so much as a dime of it. How could she possibly think he'd understand?

She couldn't go on this way. Every year that went by, she got more beaten up. Lines had begun to appear on her face. Every year, she brought home less and less money, became more and more destitute. She was barely scraping by now; soon she'd be starving. She smashed the wrecked chair into the mirror, screaming like a lunatic. She dropped what was left of the chair among the shards of glass and headed for the kitchen.

"How did that go again?" she asked herself as she picked out the sharpest knife she had, "oh yeah: 'down the block, not across the street.'" She laughed like a lunatic as she put the knife to her wrist.

"Ah, ah," she suddenly found herself in an inescapable grip.

"Let me go! I'm finishing the job you should've done a long time ago." She struggled in vain against the Joker's impossible strength, her voice eighty miles past unsteady and now deep in the heart of crazytown.

The Joker easily deprived her of the knife, and then slammed her against the wall. "Now, Amanda," he said calmly, holding her wrists against her chest with one hand, pinning her down, and holding her face with the other, making her look at him. As unstable as Amanda was, she knew better than to fight. It would only make the impending beating worse. Besides, she hadn't had this much of the Joker's attention in months. "It's obvious you've had a very stressful week," he continued. He seemed perfectly rational, which made even less sense to Amanda now that she was around the bend. Maybe he thought more clearly when there was a raving lunatic nearby. "It's not healthy to keep all that inside, hmm?" The gentle, chiding expression he gave her twisted itself into a cruel joke as it went through his scars and makeup. "But don't worry, I know just how to blow off some steam: you just need to have a little fun," his voice became increasingly sinister, until he merely hissed the word 'fun.' "Now come along," he said, freeing her and snapping back to a tone that would have passed for comforting on anyone else.

Amanda collapsed as soon as the Joker released her. She slumped against the wall and the pain of her knees hitting the floor barely even registered. She felt completely drained and empty. The Joker picked her up, carrying her over one shoulder. "You'll like it, I promise."

She fazed out completely after that. Time slipped away. She had no idea whether minutes were passing, or days. A sound called her back. A familiar sound. Horribly, sickeningly familiar. How long had it been? Nine years? Ten? She gasped as recognition pierced through the gloom obscuring her mind. "That voice…it can't be!" She fought her way back to reality, only to have her eyes confirm the impossible.

"Mandy? Little Mandy?" the bloody and terrified man asked.

"How the _fuck…?!_" was all she could get out.

"I may have…_peeked_ at your social worker's case file at some point," the Joker confessed, "it…_may _have given me enough information to figure out which 'Uncle Johnny' you were always begging to stop in your nightmares."

Amanda felt a single tear run down her face. She wavered a little.

"Mandy, don't you know how much I _cared _for you?" the pervert begged, "I was worried sick after you disappeared."

"I ran away from _you! _I ran all the way to Gotham to make damn sure you never found me, or _touched _me EVER AGAIN!"

"Mandy," he begged again.

"Shuddup!" the Joker bellowed in a tone he reserved only for intimidating his victims. He kicked the man in the head. The blow had such force behind it that the bastard's head was thrown against the floor with a sickening crack. He curled into a foetal position and tried to be very, very still.

"I ran until one day I tripped over someone even more broken than I was." She gazed vaguely at the Joker. He looked nervous. He regained control of the situation.

"Would you like to know what he's been doing while you've been trying to survive, doing the only thing you know how? Hmm? Living a comfortable life in a nice house with a white picket fence and driving a big, fast car to make up for his tiiiiny cock," the Joker cackled. "Society calls _him _an upstanding citizen, and _you_ a degenerate. It tells you that you are worthless, because you are poor, and because have chosen to earn your living with an immoral career, and you should therefore submit to all the cruelty life has to offer." He pulled her close and rubbed his head against hers. "Don't you see, Amanda? Morals are _power; _the power people without them exercise over the people who do. If you cling to them, you will always be under somebody's foot: his...mine…everyone capable of putting theirs aside." Amanda began to gag. The Joker let her go. She retched violently. "Don't worry, Amanda; we're here to help you put aside those pesky morals. once. and. for. all. And we're going to laugh the whole time!" Sadistic laughter echoed through the empty building. But it wasn't just the Joker's; it took Amanda a moment to realize she was laughing along with him.

"_What's your name?" _the Joker's voice asked from behind the camera_._

"_John Speltshire," _the miserable figure slurred. He was strung up by his wrists, and he showed signs of severe torturing. Grey fluid leaked from one ear.

"_Do you like girls, Mister Speltshire?"_

"_Yes," _the man sobbed.

"_Do you like _touching _them in naughty places?" _the Joker continued in his mocking tone. The man only continued weeping. The camera panned up. The man screamed.

"_Yes, yes!" _was finally heard through uncontrollable sobs.

"_That's nice. I think today, you can play the little girl. How does that sound?"_

"_No, no, please! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" _The camera zoomed in on the man's face once again, and stayed there. He cried the tears of the utterly helpless.

"_Why, whatever for?" _the Joker said as he laughed over the man's screams. The image froze and drew back, revealing a grave looking reporter.

"_The entire state is still reeling in shock,"_ the reporter announced, _"at the grizzly discovery of a respected businessman's body; his genitals mutilated beyond recognition. While the taped footage was initially dismissed as a false confession extorted under torture, many of Speltshire's victims have now come forward to corroborate it, and Mayville, a sleepy town long believed to be beyond Gotham and the Joker's corrupting reach, finds itself the object of his latest cruel joke..."_

Amanda laughed and laughed as she watched the report. It was true what they said about Vervid news; they really would report anything. She toyed with the remote as she watched it all again and again on the massive screen before here. The penthouse she was sitting in had recently belonged to a man who'd 'gone on business' and left her to house-sit. Well, that's what she'd made him tell his boss, anyway. By the time someone figured out what really happened she'd be long gone, taking everything portable and of value with her. And…she'd torch the place, leaving the cops with nothing to lead back to her.

As she went over everything she and the Joker had done to that man the night before, she reached down and touched herself. Sex never had and never would get her off as much as this. The person she had been a few days ago was gone; evaporated like a popsicle abandoned on hot pavement.

For the first time in her life, she had nothing but her own interests to look after. She was free. Not free of the Joker, of course; she could never be free of him. But her mind had expanded so far beyond her feelings for him they barely whispered to her now. And at last she saw why the Joker had never supported her; he didn't want her to be some lackey: he knew she was better than that. She would be far more valuable to him now than she could have dreamed, and have everything she ever wanted.

And while she flew, she knew the Joker was making Harley a slave to his will. The two of them would drag each other down into a completely dysfunctional co-dependence she wanted no part of. So what if Amanda's heart belonged to the Joker? He could have it; she didn't need it anymore.

The Joker had told her she was clever on more than once occasion, but she had never believed him. Now, though, she could see the forest _and _the trees. She had a vision. She was going to get what she was after, and it was going to be easy, because she didn't care who she stepped on anymore.

"Gianni, how good of you to visit," Amanda said while pinching the man's cheek, doing a lurid parody of an over-affectionate aunt. Her enforcers held him tight. Gianni Belluci shook with rage, too furious to say anything. Amanda wondered how much of what was happening was getting through the man's misogyny. He had been head of Maroni's prostitution racket, and had carried on with business as usual after Maroni's death. He saw women as cattle that could be trained to speak and give blow jobs. And preferably do more of the latter.

Amanda had been quietly taking over of Gotham's prostitution market for months. She used her connections to the Joker to hire just the right kind of muscle needed for protecting her girls and warding off rivals, while creating something between a business, a union and a gang. Under her leadership, hookers had become akin to a black market, and most now had the outrageous price tag that came with that status. Her main problem was that Gianni undercut her prices while keeping all his girls by any means necessary. He'd kill a lot more if he could afford them, but Amanda snapped up every ho' not in his power, meaning Gianni had a limited supply. He couldn't even afford to strangle the odd bitch anymore.

Once Amanda had proven to the Joker that her girls were a valuable source of information, he had provided her with all the muscle and firepower she needed to lean on Gianni and lean on him hard. In response, Gianni had declared all-out war on Amanda. She'd lost a lot of good girls in shootings. She'd had to pull all the streetwalkers off the streets and set up brothels, which meant a big chunk of her profits were now going to pay off the cops. At last, the Joker took a personal interest in Gianni, and the pimp had fallen in a matter of days. Amanda had asked to deal with him personally, a request the Joker gleefully fulfilled.

"You are less than nothing," Gianni finally hissed. "I am gonna cut off both yo' arms _and _legs, and keep you as my personal raping stump."

"Uh-huh," she said as she pulled out a sharp, sleek knife. She grabbed him by the hair, exposing one side of his neck and sliced open his jugular vein. This ensured he would die more slowly, and know what was happening, unable to do anything about it. "This is how livestock is put down in the third world, Gianni," she explained, "I thought you might appreciate the irony of dying like the cattle, since that's how you see us."

Gianni uttered increasingly violent threats until his dying breath. Amanda watched him die with mild dissatisfaction; it was too peaceful a death for him. The Joker applauded as Gianni died, startling everyone. He had been standing quietly in the shadows, making people forget he was there while Amanda stole the scene. "Very nicely done," he told her. He signalled to a couple of his henchmen to remove Gianni's body.

She sighed in frustration. "I should have tortured him or something."

"Don't be so hard on yourself; killing is like a relationship: you have to get out there and try lots of different things so you can figure out what you want." The comment stung. It reminded Amanda that the Joker wasn't hers.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to your pierrot doll?" she asked coldly.

"Harlequin," the Joker corrected, "in due time." Harley had recently taken to wearing a skin-tight harlequin costume and face-paint when she went out to assist the Joker in his mischief and mayhem. The two of them were inseparable now, while Amanda had been pushed off to the sidelines.

Amanda consoled herself with being fabulously rich and with her new hobby. The hookers of Gotham were flocking to her; from the mangiest streetwalkers to the classiest escorts. She offered not only excellent protection (she forbade her muscle from roughing up the girls, and personally killed anyone who defied her), but also union-like perks such as standard rates of pay and even a very affordable group insurance plan. She used her newly-acquired wealth to buy reconstructive surgery for fixing the broken noses and disfiguring scars that so many of the 'cheaper' hookers suffered from. She had also paid for cosmetic surgery for some of the women; face-lifts, nose jobs, implants. The money was all a worthwhile investment, as beautiful women could charge more and literally attracted more customers.

Now, with Gianni out of the way, Amanda could look to the future. She was thinking about making some sort of trust fund with the money she would no longer need to bribe the police with. Some of her former colleagues had talked about getting out and going straight. That held no interest for Amanda, but making sure her enterprise didn't have too many chiefs and not enough indians was definitely a concern. Plus, the women who entered more 'respectable' careers could also prove to be invaluable spies someday.

As for her 'hobby,' Amanda was rapidly turning into a serial killer. It wasn't hard; her 'hit list' grew far faster than she could cross out the names on it. There were so many worthwhile targets. The rush it gave her was completely addictive, as the Joker had probably known all along. She tried to be careful about how often she did it as well as who she killed and how she disposed of her victims; she wouldn't have the luxury of an insanity plea if she were to be caught and her career as both an informant and a sex worker would be over. But the Joker had been giving her pointers for years, back when he was still flying under the radar, so she knew how to hide herself well. Her killings had earned her the nickname "The Butcher," for her preference for dispatching her victims by cutting them up. However, no one knew she was The Butcher, or how many victims belonged to that killer and not the Joker, because their methods were so similar. Amanda intended to keep it that way. Even her henchmen, while they may suspect what she was up to, were told nothing but to keep their suspicions to themselves.

Tonight she would go hunting. She had been unable to for months, because Gianni had been gunning for her and it was far too risky for her to go out unescorted. But now, with the back of Gianni's organisation broken, and Gianni dead, she was free to stalk the streets again. And the best part? As long as she kept her usual territory, no one thought anything of it. Even Batman let her be, seeing only another streetwalker. Being an invisible denizen of Gotham's underworld had its benefits. The thought of going out again thrilled her in a way only those who killed for pleasure could understand. It would be a welcome diversion after Gianni's anticlimactic demise.

Once she as alone, she dressed herself in the cheap, scant clothing now reserved exclusively for the hunt. She laughed to herself as she took to the streets, sorry nobody else was in on the joke.


	4. Chapter 4

Harley sat glumly in the holding cell

The fifteen-foot-high concrete wall around the Selltek building was covered in obscenity-laden graffiti. It was one of the most reviled sites in all of Gotham, because it housed the most reviled people in all of Gotham. They weren't murderers or rapists of pedophiles…they were _telemarketers._ No one knew why Selltek hadn't moved their operation to India or South America, or somewhere else with ridiculously cheap labour, but they didn't much care. Selltek peddled everything from magazines to kitchenware to Caribbean vacations to votes. Their agents were so insufferable that many people would buy hundreds of dollars worth of items just to get them to keep from calling for a few days.

And it didn't seem to matter if you had telemarketer screening or were on the Do Not Call List, your phone would be ringing with Selltek agents day and night. They were so universally loathed they had to hide the identities of its call centre agents and many were housed on site, leaving for faraway destinations on a schedule comparable to remote mines or lumber camps. The building was like a fortress, or a prison, with the huge concrete wall topped with razor wire surrounding the property, and massive sliding steel doors guarding the entrance and four guard towers. Cameras captured everything over every square inch of the property.

Even Gotham's criminal element hated Selltek. Many a villain yearned to blow Selltek sky-high. No one dared, though; it was too obvious a target, and Batman patrolled it regularly. You'd have to be crazy to even attempt to go near the place.

Luckily, the Joker _was_ crazy. Harley opened the truck door and levelled her bazooka and the front door. "Don't call us," she fired off a couple of shots and took out the steel doors, "we'll call you!"

The Joker and his gang drove the truck past the destroyed gate and smashed through the doors of main entrance. Panicked employees fled in all directions. Harley donned a gas mask and began hurling smoke grenades filled with Joker Venom into the frantic masses. Hysterical laughter soon spread like wildfire.

"Always nice to see a company that likes to keep its employees happy," the Joker quipped through his own gas mask. The laughter had stopped, and all the unlucky workers in the area now bore manic grins. The whole gang had now donned gas masks and fanned out. They were using magnetic sensors to sweep the building.

"This looks like it," one of the thugs announced, indicating a vault-like door. Another mug looked over the door and marked certain spots with various colours of spray paint. More goons approached with diamond-toothed saws, drills and acetylene torches. With hurried cutting, the sound of metal screeching against metal and the hissing of the torches, they severed all the door's connections. Then, Harley slipped a small amount of C-4 in two strategically-placed cracks. Everyone backed off, and Harley detonated the C-4. It gave a little pop, and with a horrible groaning, the door began to fall to the floor. It landed with a massive BAM!

The Joker turned to a couple of techie goons. "Get to the servers."

Selltek had the most complete database carrying information on Gotham's inhabitants in existence; credit history, credit cards, addresses, shopping tendencies, job history, and the rumours about what other information they managed to collect abounded. Anyone who got hold of all that information would have Gotham by the proverbial balls. Police and criminals alike wanted to get their hands on it.

The techies carefully began powering down the servers and disconnecting them. Meanwhile, some lackeys were assembling a weird cross between a crane and a fork-lift what barely fit under the ceiling. When the techies were done, the servers were secured with straps and attached to the forklift. "Careful!" one of the techies shouted, "If you bump this thing we could lose data!"

The servers were wrapped in plastic and wheeled into the truck. Water balloons were then thrown at the servers, except their contents foamed up and hardened instantly, safely securing the hardware. Outside, firefight erupted from the watchtowers. When gassing them with Joker Venom had no effect, Harley blasted them with her bazooka.

"SHIT! It's the Bat!" shouted one of the goons. Everyone scrambled into the truck.

The new and improved batmobile roared towards the compound and parked in the gateway, blocking the Joker's escape route. The wheelman fired up the truck, but the Joker signalled for him to wait. The whole gang were sweating bullets as the doors of the batmobile opened. The Joker dismounted from the truck and leaned against it casually.

"Game over, Joker,"

The Joker raised his hands in surrender. "Ya got me!"

Batman advanced and grabbed the Joker by the throat. "What sick game are you playing this time?"

"Well, now that you mention it, you might want to do something about the bomb I left our beloved telemarketers as a parting gift, seeing as how everyone in there is catatonic. Of course, if you take me in, and let Selltek get blown to kingdom come, they'll probably give you a medal!" the Joker laughed. "Oh, but you have rules about that sort of thing, don't you?"

Batman growled and slammed the Joker against the side of the truck. Joker laughed the whole time. Batman attached small explosive charges to all of the wheels he could get at and blew them out. With a final, evil look he hurried into the building to disarm the bomb.

Harley hopped down next to the Joker and checked his pupils. "What day is it, puddin'?"

"The eighteenth," he answered indulgently.

"An' how are we getting outta here?"

The Joker smiled as the buzz of helicopter blades could be heard overhead. Everyone got out of the truck. The Joker instructed the gang to attach the trailer from the truck to cables hanging from the massive helicopter. Once this was done, the pilot expertly landed the chopper on top of the trailer and dropped several ladders. The gang scrambled up and slammed the doors shut once everyone was inside. The helicopter took off, leaving a seriously peeved Batman behind them, while the police were unable to help; cut off by the Batmobile.

Back at the hideout, things were getting ugly. The Joker had been getting increasingly violent and unpredictable of late. Harley suspected he was going through a particularly bad spell of his schizophrenia. She had tried to reduce the environmental factors that may have been impacting him, but he resisted. Now, he was threatening his henchmen for no reason. Harley was trying to intercede.

"You are becoming extremely tiresome, Harley," the Joker snapped in warming.

Harley twiddled her fingers nervously. "Puddin', you ain't been right lately. You're getting worse. I think…I really think you'd feel better if you took some meds."

The Joker approached her. He leaned down to kiss her, but said "I don't think you're going to like what it does to me," then shoved her hard enough to make her fall on her butt.

She scrambled back to her feet. Them were fightin' words. "For once in your life will you listen when I say-"

The Joker became furious and backhanded her. Harley stood her ground. They fought. Loudly. So loudly that someone reported a domestic dispute. And so the police discovered the vast majority of the Joker gang upon arriving to a routine domestic call. The gang was so wrapped up in watching the knock-down, drag-out brawl between Harley and the Joker that no one had been on look-out, and the police officer, recognising Harley and the Joker's voices, called in half the force. By the time everyone realised the police were there, they had been surrounded twice over.

The Joker simply saw this as a chance to take out a few police officers. He dragged Harley out to surrender, and when two officers got close enough, he sliced open their necks. The SWAT team then jumped him. She had stayed as close to him as she could, trying to block any shots the sharpshooters tried to get off. Other police dragged Harley away.

"Don't you dare shoot him! I see he's down! You shoot him an' I'll sue for brutality!!" she screamed as she was dragged off, trying to warn off anyone with an itchy trigger finger. It was the last she saw of the Joker. She heard talk of taking him straight back to Arkham over the police radio while in the squad car, though. She endorsed this option as much as she could.

Harley sat glumly in the holding cell, well away from the other prisoners. The police had been extremely polite when processing her and her bail hearing had already taken place. She had gotten placed under the minimum bail as soon as they were able to squeeze her in at court. It irritated Harley that the police still saw her as an innocent victim of the Joker, despite her clear presence and assistance at a number of the Joker's criminal activities

She watched as a police officer and a slick-looking attorney approached her cell. "You're free to go, Dr. Quinzel," the police officer announced as he unlocked the door to the cell, "Mr. Feldstein has posted bail." Harley said no more than was absolutely necessary as she was processed for release. Feldstein took her to a waiting car. She waited for him to speak first.

"I'm Gary Feldstein, criminal defence attorney" he introduced himself, "I've been hired to represent you at any and all hearings, court cases, etc... and so I need to know what you've told the police."

"Nothin,'" Harley shrugged, "he told me to keep quiet." She didn't ask him _who _had hired him, because she already knew, and she didn't ask him _when _he'd been hired because she didn't care.

The lawyer nodded. "That will make things much easier. I already have a strategy for your defence, should you be charged."

"_Should _I be charged?! I blew up a bunch of guards yesterday; I shot people in broad daylight in front of a dozen witnesses last month! The cops've gotta have hours of security footage showin' me at heists by now."

"But you haven't _confessed _to anything, have you?"

"No," she answered, rolling her eyes. "I oughtta be on my way to Arkham, not…wherever you're takin' me."

"To your apartment."

"You gotta be kiddin' me! I shoulda been evicted months ago."

"I should bring you up to speed on what has been happening to you outside of the Joker's gang: Arkham frequently has staff on extended leave under…extenuating circumstances. You were listed as being on such a leave of absence, and appropriate payroll measures were put in place. Since your rent was being automatically debited from your account, and your pay automatically deposited, there has been no lapse in your rent payments and the apartment is still under your name."

Harley let that sink in. "Aw, man; I gotta clean out my fridge!"

Feldstein smiled. "I think you should also contact your superiors at Arkham as soon as you're able. Or I can do it for you, if you prefer."

"I prefer. Do you know what's happenin' with Mistah J?"

"I had your account of his condition taken under consideration, as well as the fact he was never released from Arkham. He's been readmitted."

Harley sighed in relief. Soon, they arrived at her apartment. Feldstein gave her his card and departed. She made eye contact with a member of the Joker's gang who hadn't been arrested as she walked over to the building; he was there to make sure none of the Joker's rivals got any funny ideas. Even now, he was protecting her. In return, she vowed to take care of him.

She felt very strange opening the door to her apartment. It was a ghost, an empty husk of the life she used to have. She had shed it like a cocoon, ready to spread her wings. It was familiar and comfortable and alien and unsettling all at the same time. The police had moved a few items in their search for clues, and the floor as dirty with their footprints, but otherwise it was exactly has she had left it more than eight months ago. Everything was dusty.

She got out the vacuum and got to work. She found cleaning the apartment therapeutic. When she opened the fridge, she burst into a fit of laughter. Its contents were beyond disgusting. She took a picture; it might amuse him. She threw everything out and double-bagged it. As she was cleaning, she saw a patrol car go by twice. The Joker was obviously not the only one keeping an eye on her.

The apartment restored to a more bearable condition, she sat down at her computer and pulled up her personal logs. She opened the one marked "J." She could read her own frustration through her old notes. Oh crap; Harley remembered why she'd been so happy to see the Joker free: "private sessions." Nutcases didn't get conjugal visits. Well, maybe it was time to appeal for a revision in policy? Unfortunately, the medication the Joker needed was probably going to kill his sex drive, so even if she got him alone, he wouldn't be up for it –literally. Some part of her that still remembered how to be professional reminded her he was there to work on his problems, and her messy relationship with him would hinder, not help his recovery. _Shuddup you; quit bein' all rational. _

Rational thought had been busy adding to her logs on the Joker. She now had a very good plan for his treatment. Now if only she could get someone to listen to her and implement it. She printed off a copy and went to bed.

Watching Feldstein at work was fascinating. Harley sorely wished she had something to take notes with; he was almost as interesting a study as the Joker. She was pretty sure she'd gone into the wrong line of work. She swore she'd get a copy of her court case, so she and the Joker could laugh over it later. And this was only her preliminary hearing; when the criminal trial began, she was sure Feldstein would really go to work.

"I'm sorry, you Honour, but there is no proof Dr. Quinzel instigated any of the crimes you are attempting to charge her with. Given the circumstances, you cannot possibly justify charging her with anything more than being an accessory"

Feldstein had been using the same spiel for over an hour: the Joker was so dangerous that failure to cooperate was unthinkable. The new D.A. was still wet behind the ears and was eager to finally hold someone accountable for the mayhem the Joker had caused, even if that person wasn't the Joker himself. Everyone else was getting tired of the proceedings, however, and Harley was confident Feldstein would wear them down. She kept her mouth shut and watched.

As Harley had expected, the proceedings were concluded by only minimal charges being laid.

"Don't you worry, doctor, none of that will stick," Feldstein assured her.

She was sceptical but didn't care enough to argue. "I wanna see mistah J."

"I'll arrange it."

Harley ignored the funny looks everyone gave her as she went through security. She'd bought a new t-shirt just for this visit. It had the word SANE written in big letters across her chest. If anyone tried to say anything smart, though, she'd give them something to laugh about. A somewhat worn-looking man greeted her once she was through security.

"I'm Dr. Stewart Grant; the current head psychologist in the Maximum security division here at Arkham. Mr J. was sort of dropped on us. I'm afraid he's being extremely uncooperative and we're unable to evaluate him. Outside forces are understandably eager for Mr. J to remain here until such time as he can be formally released. I'm under a great deal of pressure to make sure that happens and I'm going to use any and every resource available to me. Nobody knows this man better than you do, doctor. What's your evaluation of his condition?"

"Aggravated schizophrenia," she answered. "He needs to be put on antipsychoics."

Dr. Grant gave a short laugh. "Crane swore blind I'd get a straight answer out of you right away. He bet his transfer from Maximum Security on it."

"Is Jonathan back on staff?"

"No, he's far too unstable. But he's pushing for release. He wants to be on the other side of the cell again."

She went with Grant to talk to the gang members who had also been admitted. They, too were being disruptive and uncooperative, but she quickly bullied them into submission. Next, she went to see Dr. Crane. Crane tried to charm her into taking his side. It was nice to see Crane was still selfish and manipulative.

"Why do you want back so bad?" she asked him

"This institution is my baby and I don't like how it's being run."

"Johnathan, the last time you ran Arkham, it was a revolving door for gangsters and your personal supply of fear toxin guinea pigs."

"Yes, but _aside _from that, it was a tight operation. And I think things are getting…sloppy."

"Like releasing you from maximum security?" Harley asked in a vaguely threatening tone.

Crane paled. "Well if you're going to be like that..." he muttered, cowed.

"Gotham inmates can now earn privileges with good behaviour; it adds extra reinforcement," Dr. Grant interjected, "and keeps the doctors from failing to acknowledge a patient's progress."

"Really? Well, I'm willing to wager Mr. J will be exploiting your new system by week's end. And if he is, I suggest you start taking recommendations like Dr. Crane's a bit more seriously."

"I don't make recommendations for _him,_" Crane refuted, "I don't even try. That's why you're here; _you_ deal with him."

Harley glanced at her watch. "Actually, it's high time I did: he needs to take his medication." She smiled at the dubious look Crane gave her. Harley looked at Dr. Grant, and the man nodded. He took her down to Block F, and she endured more dubious looks from the security there.

"I was hoping you'd show up," John told her as she walked through the door. He smiled sheepishly.

Harley held out her hand, and he surrendered the Joker's medication. "I'm going into his cell alone –don't argue! He's going to take this without a fight; I guarantee it."

Harley stared down the guards and nurses, and Dr. Grant sighed in surrender. "I suppose after you've been at his side for this long, you know better than anyone how to manage him. I'll let you in just this once, but you're going in at your own risk." He nodded at a guard, who grudgingly opened the cell door.

Before she showed herself, Harley put the Joker's pill in her mouth. She shook her head firmly when Dr. Grant opened his mouth to protest.

The Joker was sitting on the end of his cot with his head down and face hidden from view. She nervously came into view; it was hard to say how he'd take her visit.

"How ya holdin' up, puddin'?"

"Won't you come in?" he asked.

She hurried in and sat down on the Joker's lap, facing the door. She had her arms around him, exposing a small "IN" that had previously been hidden under her right upper arm. She sat at just the right angle to show this to the Joker and no one else. Harley had learned that it was best to open with a joke when the Joker was in one of his more unstable states of mind. He chuckled appreciatively. She leaned in and kissed him.

"I don't suppose that's acid you've smuggled in for me," he said somewhat chidingly. She had slipped the pill down his throat when they kissed.

"…maybe?" The Joker gave a short, subdued laugh. "Oh sweetie, they sedated you, didn't they?"

"We were having a…disagreement." Even doped up as he was, the staff refused to remove his strait jacket. Harley fussed over him, running her fingers through his greasy, green hair and kissing him on the temple. "I'm bored stupid," he announced, "tell me what's been happening with you."

"My shark of a lawyer says he's gonna get me off completely," Harley began.

"I may have to have a chat with Feldstein to make sure he knows what his job is…and what _mine_ is."

Harley laughed. "An' I still got my apartment. The fridge might be a loss, though." She showed him the pictures, which he asked to keep. "It's quiet," she blurted out, "I don't like the quiet." The Joker suddenly looked at her seriously. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I want you to get better, puddin'," she leaned down to kiss him on the temple again, and whispered in his ear, "So we can get out of here!"

The clarity in the Joker's eyes belied his supposed stupor. She kissed him one more time and got up. She wiped her eyes as she left the cell, and jumped a little when the door slammed behind her.

"I'm sorry if seeing him sedated distresses you, doctor," Dr. Grant apologized, "he as attacking the staff; we had no choice."

"Are you kiddin' me? I should see him doped up more often, he's like a big, loveable pussycat!"

Dr. Grant gazed at her with a stupid expression on his face, completely at a loss for what to say.

The days dragged on. Harley kept in touch with Dr. Grant and gave him recommendations for the Joker's treatment. She made all her meals from scratch and bought the ingredients every day just to have something to pass the time. She was sitting down to another meal by herself when the phone rang, making her jump.

She stared at it as if she'd never seen one before. Her phone bill was paid automatically, just like her rent. Cable, internet, utilities, even her RSP's were being contributed to automatically. Her finances were operating like a brain-dead patient: all the major organs still dutifully working away, blissfully unaware of how futile their efforts were. After it rang for the fourth time, she tentatively picked it up, preventing the answering machine from activating. She had always been sadistic about the number of rings she made her callers endure before being able to leave a message. "…hello?" she answered after an unusually long pause.

"Dr. Quinzel?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

"Yes…who's this?" she asked as she dredged up recollections of proper phone discourse.

"Dr. Grant, from Arhkam. We met the other day? Dr. Quinzel, your insight into the Joker's treatment is invaluable, but he's still being extremely difficult." Harley recognised 'difficult' as institutional code for 'impossible.' "I suspect he might be more cooperative if he sees you're involved in his treatment. I'd like to come back to work; I'll have all your clearance reinstated, and you can return tomorrow."

"I see," she answered blandly. "Tomorrow, then." She waited for him to finish uttering pleasantries and hung up. She dialled the number of Feldstein's card and left him a message informing him she was returning to work tomorrow.

True to his word, Dr. Grant returned all her clearance.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to a cardboard tube she was carrying.

She pulled out a poster with a cartoon figure in a strait jacket on it. The caption read, 'You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!' "I'm gonna put it in my office right away…just as soon as I get one."

Dr. Grant 'escorted' Harley to F block from two steps behind. "Doctor, that poster is _beyond _unprofessional. You cannot possibly expect to display it in this institution."

"Doctor Grant, in the six months prior to my interning at Arkham, Mr. J was treated by four other psychologists: One vanished, one was killed under extremely mysterious circumstances and the other two ran away screaming, and one of _those _did so literally. I was forced to take on Mr. J's case alone after Dr. Noble went into an _exceptionally_ early retirement and moved to Bermuda two weeks after I started. All of these people were perfect pictures of what one expects a psychologist to be; veritable paragons of professionalism. I, on the other hand, have acted towards my patient in a decidedly unprofessional manner, and I'm still here. It is my opinion, doctor, that being 'professional' around this man is a very unhealthy practise.

"Furthermore, Mr. J is a veritable holy grail of criminal study; I'm certain you have a list of specialists begging for the chance to get at him. You could have anyone you wanted; the finest specialists in the world. But you call me; someone who should probably be locked up along with him. I'm here because we all know I'm the only who even has a hope of managing him. So please don't lecture me about proper protocol; it's a waste of both our time. Just learn to look the other way, and we'll get along fine."

Dr. Grant scowled at her, but said nothing more until they reached the Joker's cell. "Be careful; he's not sedated today."

"Good." She nodded to the guard.

The Joker's eyes lit up wickedly when he saw her. "What. Have. We. Here?" He laughed madly. She stepped into the cell. As soon as she was out of the guards' reach, the Joker lunged at her, overpowering her even with his arms secured in the strait jacket. She let out a squeak that urged the Joker on. This was one of their little games. He used his body to pin her against the wall and kissed her forcibly. Then he staggered back, spluttering, but too late; Harley had forced the pill down his throat with her tongue. She let out a wicked laugh. "Not…FAIR!" the Joker protested in shock and outrage.

"You're gonna take your medication every day, on time. And if you don't like my games, I'll get them to put you on suppositories."

"_Thank you _for making sure the patient got his medication, doctor," Grant said as he stepped in to intervene. The Joker gazed penetratingly at the man, but retreated to the back of his cell.

Dr. Grant hurried Harley back out of his cell. "If you can't be professional, at least be _civil!_"

"I dunno, I take our arguing as proof of emotional investment."

Dr. Grant rubbed the bridge of his nose. "A few more weeks of this and I think I'll be looking forward to him breaking out again."

Harley smiled inwardly. _Be careful what you wish for…_

At the criminal trial, Harley had to pinch herself to keep from laughing. Often she'd ignore what was being said and remind herself of some awful thing or other the Joker had said to her, so she looked appropriately miserable. Harley was taping the whole thing, eager to re-watch the circus the trial had become in the company of the Joker, and give the proceedings the laughing they deserved.

Feldstein must have been Gambol's lawyer once upon a time. In any case, he was making mincemeat out of the prosecution. Feldstein invoked the Joker the way republicans invoked 9/11; the way he pegged it, Harley was the only thing standing between Gotham and a murderous rampage dwarfing everything he'd done before. When the prosecution was fool enough to mention Batman, Feldstein jumped all over it.

"Can _any _responsible citizen really turn to that vigilante for protection when a law-abiding person, a _trained professional _has come forward to manage this maniac in a manner in accordance with the law? Quite frankly, I look forward to the day when _Batman _is under Dr. Quinzel's care." The jury laughed as the judged banged his gavel, calling for order. Harley literally bit her tongue. Nothing would please the Joker more than to share a cell with Batman at Arkham, she knew.

Back at Arkham, the Joker had been taking his medication properly for several weeks, and he was evening out. Grant was not allowing Harley to have private sessions with him, so mostly they just talked. It was actually sort of nice; Harley finally had the Joker's undivided attention every time she talked to him.

"So I gotta stick to my probation terms," she explained to him, telling him the outcome of her trial. "Feldstein fought tooth an' nail, but the judge was absolutely adamant about the sentence; I gotta stick with you. You know I was actually _ordered _to go with you if you break out again?"

"Most women don't get that kind of life sentence handed down to them from a court," the Joker quipped, "they're stupid enough to do it to themselves for a hunk of rock and a pretty white dress."

"Why do you think I went to all the trouble of getting my doctorate? Now I get _paid _to put up with your crap."

"Compliments of Uncle Sam." Their unhinged cackling echoed through Arkham's halls.


	5. Chapter 5

She had long, curly red hair

It had been more than two years since Dr. Quinzel had taken on the alias Harley Quinn and run off with the Joker. Both she and he had been in and out of Arkham a dozen times, though Harley was still on the payroll. All of Gotham had accepter her role as the Joker's "damage control," and whenever the Joker and his gang were arrested, she usually got a slap on the wrist. They say she had accumulated 20 years' worth of probation, and the most she was ever charged with was violating parole. Not that anyone minded; the Joker was far more manageable now, did not terrorize the city to the extent he used to, and everyone knew Harley was the reason.

Their relationship had become fodder for local gossip media; the sort of thing usually reserved for local businessmen's bimbo spouses. But since Bruce Wayne never dated anyone exclusively enough to be called a girlfriend, gossipers looked elsewhere. The extent of dysfunction in Harley and the Joker's relationship had become the stuff of legend. The police had arrested the entire Joker gang on more than one occasion after following up on a domestic dispute complaint. It was also said the police department had started a pool to see how long their relationship would last, and how it would end (with odds favouring Harley ending the relationship in a matter of months by castrating the Joker).

Harley kicked at the stones on the pathway. The Joker was completely wrapped up in one of this Batman plots, and had been ignoring Harley for weeks. She hated when he did this, especially since it was a violation of the terms of her probation to not keep an eye on him. When she tried to make him talk to her, he would either throw her out, go hide somewhere or get extremely violent. The former two had been developed as "coping" mechanisms, if you could call them that, to keep from getting into one of the nasty fights that so often attracted the attention of the police. _Does it qualify as progress towards accountability if a man cuts back on beating a woman in order to avoid being arrested? _Harley mused.

Today, she'd been thrown her out on her ass. She was tired of being stuck inside all the time, anyway, so she took a walk. Now, most respectable women of Gotham did not go for walks at four a.m. Harley hoped her over-the-top harlequin outfit clearly marked her as not being one of that _trollop_'s minions.

She walked through the Gotham botanical garden, vaguely recalling it was not a good place to go, but not remembering why. Something about some nutjob hanging around them. Harley shrugged and kept walking. Nuts and weirdo's had begun cropping up on a regular basis, just as the Joker had predicted. They were mostly small-time, though, and nothing of the Joker's caliber. Which meant Harley was quite confident she could handle anyone that came along, and anyone who tried to say different would have to answer to her M-5.

Harley heard the agitated sounds of police giving chase, and laid low. They were definitely not after Harley. When you ran with the Joker, you didn't so much run from the police as play hide-and-go-seek. Besides, the police certainly had more pressing concerns than a lone loon wandering by herself at night.

Harley saw frantic movement that easily gave away the police's target. She followed while keeping out of sight. It was a woman the police were chasing, Harley saw. She was not very good at hiding. Luckily, Harley was bored, and felt like making sport of the police. She tripped the other woman in such a way as made her look like she had dove down a hill. She then dragged the woman by her feet away from the spot where she'd gone down. In the dark, she only saw an outline of her new friend. Harley took the woman's hand and guided her to a relatively safe spot.

"If we wanna get out of here clean, we need a diversion," Harley whispered as she pulled out a grenade.

"Throw it at that SUV!" the other woman pointed and hissed.

Harley shrugged and lobbed the grenade at its intended target. It landed with a most satisfying BOOM! Harley then guided the other woman out of the park while police scrambled in the wake of the explosion.

Once they were away safely, Harley took a better look at the other woman. She had long, curly red hair. She was tall and slender; she looked like something out of some tale of Camelot. Her outfit looked like it had been heavily influenced by Peter Pan. When Harley laid eyes on her, it was magic.

"Hi, I'm Harley," she said in a stupid, girly, flirting way.

The woman in green smiled back encouragingly. "I'm Ivy," she answered in a voice that seemed to belong to the fae.

Harley felt her face get hot. She was probably pink under her white face paint. This wasn't like her; she'd never swung that way before. But then…she'd never met a woman like this before. "They say it ain't easy bein' green, but you do it with finesse."

Ivy walked over, and Harley practically melted. "Why don't you come with me, and see for yourself?"

Harley took a sudden and potent interest in bearded clams. "'Kay."

Ivy led Harley to a completely innocuous-looking electric car. It looked completely innocent and moved noiselessly. "You sure know how to get around, Red. This beats the hell outta ridin' in the back of a stolen truck."

"Now that I think about it, I've only even seen you in the company of that creepy clown. How come you're flying solo all of a sudden?"

"I needed a break," Harley answered cryptically. "Sometimes I feel like I'm in a love triangle with Mistah J and Batman."

"Well, if that grinning weirdo has joined the leather squad, I'll be more than happy to keep you entertained." Ivy gave Harley a knowing look and Harley giggled like a schoolgirl. She leaned in towards Ivy.

"Ah-ah, not a good idea," Ivy warned, touching a gloved finger to Harley's lips.

"Oh," Harley answered, feeling silly.

"They don't call me Poison Ivy for nothing; my kiss is lethal. But don't worry; I don't plan on being a 'hands-off' with you. I have a solution to this little dilemma"

When they got to Ivy's hideout, Harley was sat down in a wicker chair…made out of a living wicker bush. It was actually extremely springy and more comfortable than the normal kind. "Here, drink this," Ivy offered Harley a glass of absolutely vile-looking green sludge.

"You deep into wheatgrass, Red?"

"It's an herbal supplement that will make you immune to poison. It's fool-proof, but it will take a few doses before the effects become permanent."

"I ain't gonna develop green skin or an allergy to weed killer, am I?"

"No, but you'll be able to drink 'drain-oh' like water. I have yet to find a substance that bypasses my supplement, and I've tried toxic waste, every naturally-occurring poison I can find, and plenty of hybrids. Now, bottoms up." Harley held her breath and drank the concoction as fast as she could. "I'm afraid it will take about 24 hours for full cellular permeation."

"That's okay, last time I kissed on the first date, it ended with blood everywhere." Ivy cocked an eyebrow, but Harley didn't elaborate. She didn't feel like reminiscing about how she had gotten together with the Joker.

"So tell me; what led you to a life of crime?"

"I'm a psychopath," Harley answered dismissively.

Ivy frowned. "You don't strike me as one."

"I'm very high-functioning, and I hid it for a long time, so it's become second-nature for me to act 'normal.' But trust me, my inner psycho doesn't need much prodding to come out and play."

"Did one of Gotham P.D.'s shrinks tell you that? Because if so, I'd get a second opinion."

"It's _my _diagnosis. And since I'm a fully qualified psychologist, I think my opinion has some weight to it."

"Is that so? Well, remind me to ask you to analyze me sometime," Ivy said, walking past and trailing a hand over Harley's chest and shoulders. Even through the fabric of Ivy's glove and Harley's bodysuit, Harley shivered at the contact. Ivy leaned over the arm of the living wicker chair flirtatiously. "You know, I would _love _to see you out of that get-up." Harley blushed again. "The bathroom's over there. Of course, you'll need something to change into…why don't you go wash up, and I'll see what I can find."

Harley retreated to the bathroom. She indulged in a real bath…it had been ages since she'd had one. When the Joker was in Arkham, Harley spent nearly all her time there, helping him get back to something resembling normal, she never had time for anything more than a quick shower, and when the Joker wasn't in Arkham, showers were a rare luxury. They'd run out of good hideouts ages ago, and Harley was now happy to have a place with a toilet in it. She scrubbed the paint off her face. There was a knock at the door. Harley crossed an arm over her chest in a vague attempt at modesty. "Come in," she called.

Ivy came in and knelt down next to the tub. Her fingers trailed in the water a little. "I found you something," Ivy showed her something pink that was neatly folded.

"Oh; thank you. I'll be out in a minute."

Ivy smiled at Harley's bashfulness, but left without further comment. Harley got out, wrapped up her hair and picked up the pink…thing. It was a wrap of some kind. The fabric felt like silk, only softer. Almost like petals. It stretched to fit her perfectly. She exited the bathroom and modeled the outfit for Ivy.

"Now why would anyone want to hide a pretty face like that?"

"It makes it easier for everyone to separate Dr. Quinzel from Harley Quinn; my coworkers at Arkham just pretend the latter is someone else. Sometimes the grease paint is all that stands between me working at Arkham, an' me being a patient there."

"People honestly don't see you as a criminal?"

"Mistah J has a good lawyer," Harley explained.

"Do you feel indebted to him; is that why you stay with him?"

"Well, that and the court order." Ivy laughed out loud. "I'm dead serious. I'm gonna catch hell from my parole officer next visit."

Ivy scoffed. "You go to your probation meetings?"

"More often than not. The police use my presence as a barometer for Mistah J; if I can't report on him, they know he's up to something. It saves me aggravation in the long term."

"But why bother, Harley, with any of it? There are things you just shouldn't put up with, and the money can't be _that_ good," Ivy's eyes fell on the bruise Harley had been trying to cover with the wrap. Harley looked away. "You're smart enough to know what it means when you have to hide the bruises." Harley shut her eyes to try and hide the tears.

"There's a better way. I'm here to offer it to you." Harley still didn't answer. "It's late; we should get some sleep. I prepared a bed for you over here;" Ivy showed Harley the way.

Harley found more clothes made of the weird, stretchy fabric had been laid by the bed. She picked out some panties and a t-shirt to wear to bed. The bed itself was very…organic-looking. But it looked very comfortable, and Harley was exhausted. The Joker kept very irregular hours, and they were taking their toll. Harley didn't even remember her head hitting the pillow.

The next morning, Ivy greeted Harley with another glass full of the vile herbal supplement. Harley held her nose and downed it.

Ivy put some breakfast on the table. Except it wasn't anything Harley had ever eaten for breakfast before. There were fried mushrooms, some ridiculously heavy slices of bread and fruit. "We goin' vegan, Red?" Harley asked in as non-plaintive a voice as she could muster.

"No, but a very strict 100-mile diet. I try to grow everything I eat. And of course no meat; the things they do to livestock animals are disgusting as well as environmentally unfriendly."

"Right," Harley agreed with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. _But they still _taste_ good! _"So what's your story, Red?" Harley asked before Ivy could press her further about her relationship with the Joker.

"Well, I'm extremely devoted to the environment," Ivy began. "I have come to understand that only drastic measures will save this planet, and people have lost all respect for the plants we need to survive. I have made it my cause to make people respect plants once more. And nothing fosters respect like fear."

"You got that right," Harley agreed again. Whatever else Harley was, she was a therapist and could see when someone needed someone to just listen. They said Gordon had predicted the denizens of Gotham would escalate as Batman escalated this war on crime. Here, it seemed, was proof positive. The Joker would be delighted.

Ivy continued telling Harley her story. It seems the woman was a brilliant botanical geneticist who had quit her company after they had scrapped a plan to make cheap, productive, carbon-capturing crop plants in favour of terminator seeds. Horrified at the prospect of making the world food supply dependent on these one-shot crops, Ivy had gone to destroy the lab where the terminator seeds were being developed. Worse still, when she arrived, she had discovered the lab was developing a virus to turn crops all over the world into terminator seed, forcing farmers everywhere to buy new seed every year just to grow a crop. Luckily, the virus had been in a very early stage of development she destroyed every scrap of research on them, and then got to work on the samples. Unluckily, Ivy was exposed to it. It had never meant to be used on people, and the early experimental version had completely rewritten her DNA, making her saliva and other bodily fluids alkaline and poisonous. Harley was concerned her mental faculties had also been affected by the fundamental change in her body's chemical properties.

"Man's greed -and I do mean _man's_, has reached its breaking point. It's time for a change in management, and men are going to the bottom of the food chain."

Harley made a mental note to help Ivy work on her anger issues, especially get to the root of her anger towards men.

"The trouble is that genetic engineering is not a cheap thing to do, even for someone as skilled as me. I need funds to keep my work going."

"Why not just steal what you need?" Harley asked. The didn't add that that was what the Joker always did.

"Easier said than done; the places that keep the stuff I need have priceless corporate secrets as well as equipment and chemicals, and the security is even tighter than your average bank vault. Getting in is impossible."

"Oh yeah? Try me."

GenTech was an easy mark compared to plenty of the places the Joker had hit. Harley didn't have the luxury of the army of thugs the Joker kept, but she could operate with more finesse, and most importantly, she was trying to keep from being spotted, whereas the Joker liked theatrics. She made some calls, did some google-ing and figured out which staff had the clearance they needed. Harley was going to capture their target and then torture him a little, so make sure he knew she meant business. After that, it would be easy to extort the information they needed to get into the building. But Ivy decided on a different course of action. They were able to abduct Sam Thompson, a high-ranking scientist who lived alone, rather easily. When they had him, Ivy made him inhale something.

"Just watch," Ivy said when Harley asked what she was doing. She made Thompson inhale something, and his eyes glazed over. "Oh sweetie, you left all my important equipment at work," she informed him.

"Baby, I'm so sorry," he slurred back

"Oh you've had such a long day and you're so tired. I'll go get them. Remind me how?"

Harley got them disguises. Ivy was slim enough to pass for a man with a little padding and a lot of facial hair. Harley would wear a "bunny suit," the space-man suits workers wore in labs where they couldn't risk their dead skin and shed hair contaminating whatever they were working on. She would have to sneak into the building and change there, so she made herself into a brunette for that portion. She would also knock out the CCTV. Odds were good that if she were caught pulling heists for someone besides the Joker, she would get more than a slap on the wrist the next time she was (inevitably) arrested.

She took out the CCTV with a handy little gadget she had picked up a while back from a techie the Joker had terrorized into making it. Next, she entered the building and swiped a pass that made the security screening system go haywire. She drugged the guard when he was distracted by the buggy system. She casually headed towards the nearest ladies' room.

She met Ivy shortly after changing into the bunny suit. Ivy was disguised as a security guard. Like most places, the security was contracted out to one of the many security companies around Gotham, and like most security companies, this one had high-and low-security jobs. It was an easy matter of getting the jump on a night watchman in a different part of town. Ivy just had to look like she meant business, and nobody thought anything of her while her "coworkers" scrambled around to make sure the building was secure. Harley played the employee and let Ivy into the required lab. Once inside, Harley welded the door shut. She began breaking into lockers full of equipment and chemicals and checking their contents against Ivy's 'shopping list.' She pulled up a flatbed cart to load up.

"Ooh, Leicah," Ivy drooled as she found a particularly nice microscope. "Come help me with this." The microscope was much heavier than Harley expected and she and Ivy struggled to get it onto the cart. Ivy eyed more heavy-looking equipment once it was loaded.

Harley sighed. She had figured this would take a while. Luckily, she and Ivy had left 'donations' at Goodthrift drop-off sited along their route as they'd come. Harley pulled out an earpiece and listened to the police on the police radio as they headed towards Gentech. She detonated the bombs hidden inside the Goodthrift packages as the police drove past. "We've got about 40 minutes before the police get here," she warned, "maybe an hour, depending on how much the explosions confused them. Let's hope they haven't replaced the choppers Mistah J took out."

Ivy immediately began culling her haul, leaving everything that could be acquired more easily elsewhere. She nodded as soon as she was ready.

"Take everything back in there," Harley indicated a well-reinforced industrial fridge. Ivy retreated with the cart. Harley opened up the case that was supposed to hold the air filter for her suit. It was full of C-4. She placed just the right amount on the wall, in just the right shape. She set a timer for 30 seconds and joined Ivy in the fridge. She felt the ground shake as their escape route opened up. Ivy hurried out to get the small delivery truck they'd purloined. Harley kicked away chunks of building, clearing a path for the cart. Ivy parked the truck just outside the hole in the wall. Harley slid the doors open and pulled the gangway out as far as it would go. It took both of them to load the cart into the truck. Harley wrapped the loot in a tarp and used some of the insta-foam to seal it in place. Then she and Ivy jumped in the front cab. They quickly changed out of their disguises as they drove off. A few blocks away, Harley cleaned the mud off the truck's license plates and slapped Goodthrift logos on the truck. They drove off without incident.

"That was brilliant!" Ivy exclaimed when they were safe back at the hideout. Harley shrugged. "You were brilliant," Ivy approached Harley, clearly intent on showing her appreciation.

"Don't celebrate just yet; we've still got one loose end to tie up." Harley turned to Thompson, still sitting on the floor in a stupor. She reached for her gun, but Ivy stopped her. Instead, Ivy knelt down and kissed Thompson deeply. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he twitched in a somewhat unpleasant manner as his vital organs began to shut down.

"Now, then, where were we?"

Being with a woman was different to say the least. Ivy was the antithesis of rough, but she knew where to find all of Harley's hotspots and quickly zeroed in on them, exploiting them mercilessly. Harley returned the favour. It was…exquisite. They finally fell asleep in a pile of arms and legs.

In the next few days, Harley learned more about genetic engineering and same-sex relationships than she ever thought she would know. Ivy was absolutely brilliant, but she was patient and took the time to explain everything she was doing to Harley, and Harley actually understood. It was very different from the Joker, who gave orders and expected them to be followed without question. Aside from the lack of pain and violence, there were other very significant differences in her relationship with Ivy. First, Ivy actually showed affection. Things were just so easy with Ivy. Harley had forgotten how mentally stable people actually acted in predictable ways. Harley always knew what Ivy was going to do, and it was very comforting.

Ivy was creative, too. With the equipment she needed, she created the most incredible plants Harley had ever seen. Last week, Ivy had walked into a bank, dropped a nut, and, later that evening, they'd come back to a tree that "grew" money sprouting out of the middle of the building. The weird fabric actually had been flower petals from one of Ivy's early experiments; providing the fashion-conscious with cheap, bio-degradable clothes. As Ivy pushed her research, she developed plants that grew feet in mere seconds. This meant they could drop the plants while the escaped, and anyone who tried to pursue them on foot would be caught up in the scrub that grew behind them.

Harley and Ivy talked about everything. Harley knew Ivy cared about her and that fulfilling her needs was important. There was no need to hide anything, and Ivy made Harley comfortable about expressing her needs. Ivy was very easygoing and didn't ask for much in return. Harley spent as much time talking to Ivy about her troubles as Ivy spent on the couch, at Harley's insistence. There were little things, too, like taking turns driving and making meals. And the seat never being up. And with just the two of them, the dress code was quite relaxed. And foreplay usually involved giggling.

But try as she might, Harley couldn't get rid of the ache she felt for the man who had set her free. And she knew it was only a matter of time before she ran into him again. The big question was, what would she do when it happened?

"Look on the bright side," Commissioner Gordon offered, "Gotham is finally increasing its greenspace, and the surrounding real estate will go up in value."

"That's the fourth factory to be consumed by vegetation in a month."

"Looks like Gotham's got an eco-terrorist organization on its hands. One that clearly cares more about plants than people; we've found half a dozen victims either shot dead or poisoned with an unknown organic compound."

"Can you tell me anything at all about the perpetrators?"

"Nothing; they kill any witnesses they come across, and they either take out the security cameras or disguise themselves as staff when they enter the building. We think they might have pulled off that stunt at GenTech. We finally found Thompson, but the poor soul's body is so badly decomposed, we're not sure what killed him."

"They way they tied up the police looked like a Joker job."

"True, but that wacko never gives up an opportunity to smile for the cameras, and whoever pulled off the GenTech job didn't want to be ID'd; they killed everyone who got a good look at them."

"Has Dr. Quinzel been meeting with her parole officer?"

"No; so we know the Joker is up to something."

"It may be more than that."

Another day, another building to be instantly turned to jungle. Except Harley and Ivy found the Joker waiting for them at this one. You could practically feel the air temperature drop as Ivy set eyes on the madman in the purple suit.

"Hiya puddin'," Harley greeted him half-heartedly.

The look he gave her made her heart pound; he was in an extremely dangerous mood. He took a deep breath and asked "What the hell are you doing with _her_?"

"Does it matter? Go back to playing with Batman."

"Batman and I don't chase each other around in our underwear," the Joker retorted.

Harley instantly got a visual image of a cartoonish Batman and Joker running around in boxers. Batman had white boxers with bats on them, and the Joker had those boxers covered in yellow smiley faces. She snickered in spite of herself. "I wouldn't put it past you."

Ivy stepped forward. "Some flowers are hardy enough to grow in the most inhospitable conditions, but they will not thrive unless they are given the care they deserve." She hung onto Harley possessively.

The Joker ignored Ivy completely, speaking only to Harley. "Getting a little on the side?"

Angry he had accused her of using Ivy, Harley snapped back "Is there anything the pot would like to inform the kettle of before he goes for another late-night visit to the Queen Whore?"

"That's business," the Joker answered curtly.

"Oh yeah, that's what everybody's saying."

"Everybody who?"

"You can't tell me you haven't heard your clowns laughing behind my back! I hear it, too! And I hear them say the two of you go way back. You won't even tell me what you did the day before we met!"

In a flash, he reached out to grab her, but she knew to stay out of striking range and wasn't close enough to catch. She backed further away, which made him really angry. Ivy threw some of her insta-growing scrub between them and the Joker. "We're getting out of here," she announced. She dragged Harley away. While Harley let herself be led away, she glimpsed back to see the Joker hadn't moved, but the way he looked at her gave her chills.

Ivy nearly threw Harley into the passenger seat of her electric car, fired it up and disappeared into heavy traffic. "How the hell did he find us? Even Batman hasn't found us yet!"

"That's what he does," Harley answered dejectedly; "it's like he knows what you're thinking. He's very good at reading people. He knew what I was the second he saw me. Red, listen to me very carefully," Harley instructed her, Ivy spared her an alarmed glance, "if he hasn't shown sign of killing anyone by tomorrow afternoon, we turn ourselves in."

"Have you lost your mind?! They'll throw the book at us! We'll be _lucky _if we end up in Arkham, and wherever we end up, they'll throw away the key! "

"He's going to kill me," Harley said for way of explanation. She said it in a tone most people use for 'it's going to rain tomorrow.'

There was so much certainty in the statement that Ivy gaped at her, diverting a little too much attention away from the road. She swerved to avoid a turning car. "Well, we'll just have to kill him first."

"Nobody can find him when he doesn't want to be found; not me, not Batman, not anyone!"

"Okay, but you know he's going to come after you, so we make sure we're ready."

Harley shook her head. "He'll come prepared, and he'll out-manoeuvre us."

"Nature will persevere," Ivy declared firmly.

Harley didn't answer. She was losing all her fight was if it was bleeding out of her. She had betrayed the Joker and there was only one means of recourse.

Ivy spent the following days splicing and cross-breeding furiously. She developed some gigantic Venus Fly Trap hybrids that looked like something out of a B-movie. She refined her insta-scrub even further and grew a living 20-foot-high fence of ironwood trees all around their hideout. Harley assisted her with everything if only to pass the time.

One night, Harley was woken up by a horrible squealing sound. The smell of burning leaves filled the air and grey smoke hung thick and heavy. She woke up Ivy, who promptly cursed. "He's cut off the back-up water supply as well as the primary! We'll have to wait for the emergency bladders to go." Ivy had lined the ceiling with plants that retained water in large sacks. They would explode if the temperature got too high, acting just like a sprinkler, only with no need for operational plumbing.

Harley grabbed the sheets off the bed and wrapped them around the two of them. "We better get away from the windows," Harley said, leading Ivy into the bathroom, "he'll probably blow-" BLAM! "-his way in." Harley burst one of the emergency bladders in order to wet the sheets. Harley and Ivy covered their mouths and got to the plants they had prepared.

The Joker was not fooling around. Thugs seemed to pour in from all directions, armed to the teeth. The giant fly traps sprang into action. They didn't actually "eat" their victims; it would be another hour before the digestive enzymes they began secreting would become a problem for the "prey," and anyone caught would almost certainly be freed long before then. They just snapped shut and held anything they caught within their incredibly strong "mouths." They were also sensitive to motion and could detect testosterone, so they went after the clowns but not Harley and Ivy.

The first wave was completely mired by the trap plants. They were the lucky ones, as the second wave soon discovered. The second line of defence was a carpet of thorny vines that began to thrash about when it was stepped on. A light scratch from the vines caused a horrible burning pain, and anything more caused a rather quick but agonizing death. Screams from the dying men soon began to drown out gunshots and blasts from secondary explosions. Harley tried to ignore the satisfied smirk that spread across Ivy's face.

Next came two clowns with flamethrowers. They burned their way through the trap plants and the vines, and torched some suspicious-looking pods. The pods, it turned out, were filled with a rather potent organic acid, and they burst, spraying the clowns with their contents. The acid ate through the heat-resistant clothes the clowns were wearing, and continued eating through their skin. They soon retreated.

Just as Harley and Ivy were preparing for the next attack, someone grabbed Harley from behind. She felt herself being jerked upwards and recognised the Joker's wiry strength. "Save yourself!" she screamed as she was torn away from Ivy. The Joker was holding her too tightly, she couldn't breathe. The world went dark.


	6. Chapter 6

The floor was cold and hard

The floor was cold and hard. Harley groaned. Someone pulled her into a sitting position, wedging her into a corner, and then slapped her cheeks a bit too roughly. She tried to protest, but couldn't articulate anything.

"Wake up," the Joker demanded.

She opened her eyes obediently. Stars filled her field of vision. Another involuntary groan escaped her.

"Look at me," he demanded again in that frightfully calm voice. She managed to sort out his face from all the lights; the makeup helped.

She smiled as a pleasant memory floated through her mind. "Do you remember that time you were givin' Dr. Grant trouble, then he lectured you for bein' childish?"

"Hmm?" the Joker asked.

"So...I let you out, an' we filled his office with mechanical toys, an' set 'em up to go off all at once." Harley smiled. "We didn't know he had a monkey phobia, an' when he saw them all start to flip an' bang cymbals an' do summersaults, he just about jumped out of his skin. You could hear him scream from the common room! He was so mad... he came to chew you out, but you just sat there, looking completely innocent. He never could prove who did it." Harley chuckled to herself. A few tears trailed down her cheeks.

"You're crying," he said, wiping the tears away with a thumb. He seemed confused by this.

"I shouldn't; I always knew it would end this way. But we had some good times, didn't we?"

"I don't want it to end."

"...what?"

"I don't..." The Joker tried a different tack. "Amanda is an informant. Mobsters, cops, doctors, politicians; torture them, and they'd never say a word, but give them a chance to try and impress a lady, and they'll say anything! She gathers information from her and the other girls' clients and he lets me know what's going on. I go to her to get that information, nothing more."

"You go to her place and talk to her alone?"

"Spies are no good if everyone knows they're spies."

"When you go into a disreputable woman's boudoir for extended periods of time, people are gonna talk. They _assume _things; _I_ _assume _things."

"I don't _want _Amanda," the Joker declared, becoming agitated. The pitch of his voice went up. "I want you." He reached out towards her as he said it.

She pulled away from his outstretched hand. "Did you kill Ivy?"

The Joker shook his head. "I barely had time to grab you before Batman showed up. The cops probably have her by now."

"I was happy; for the first time in a very long time, I was actually happy. Why couldn't you just leave it alone?"

"You're supposed to stay with me." The Joker was using strange intonation and was clearly angry as he said this.

It was clear the Joker was struggling with grossly insufficient vocabulary and social skills. Harley tried to be patient. "Why'd'ja burn down Ivy's hideout?"

"She used plants to guard it," he answered simply.

Harley tried again. "Are ya gonna kill her?"

"Not particularly," he answered. You were never _not_ a target for the Joker, but you could be not any more of a target than anybody else. Not even Batman was safe; there was always the risk of collateral damage.

"Are ya gonna kill me?" she finally asked directly.

"No."

That just didn't make sense. The only other person the Joker had ever declared an intention to _not _kill was Batman. "What do you want from me?"

"I want to fix...us." The Joker gesticulated oddly as he said this, as if he could somehow signal what he wanted.

Harley laughed mirthlessly. "_Fix _us? How do ya fix somethin' that went sour the day it started?"

The Joker scratched his head. "I was hoping you might know."

Harley had given up trying to predict the Joker long ago. As a general rule, the more you thought about what he was thinking, the less likely you would be to figure it out. She just rolled with it. "You really wanna work things out?"

The Joker nodded. Greasy strands of hair swung back and forth, accentuating the gesture.

"Take off that makeup," Harley demanded. "If you wanna have an adult conversation, you oughta' look like a man."

The Joker pulled out a handkerchief and did a surprisingly decent job of wiping off the layers of filthy face-paint.

"I don't want you to go for months on end without talkin' to me while you plan your next playdate with Batman. I don't like makin' excuses to my parole officer."

"Oh, yeah," the Joker answered as if this was some novel concept.

Harley bit back a comment on how the Joker would spend a lot less time in Arkham if he refrained from constantly baiting the vigilante. Batman had apprehended the Joker more than a half-dozen times while he was out on his merry jaunts. Despite Harley's repeated attempts to direct the Joker's energy towards more productive activities, he still considered his game of cat-and-mouse with Batman his _raison d'être_. Instead, she substituted, "I don't wanna slum it in nasty holes anymore. Hot and cold running water are no longer optional. An' I don't want you to attack me anymore. No more hitting, no more slapping, no more kicking, no more threatening me with knives. The rules in Arkham are the rules everywhere."

"Ok," he answered pensively, "are you," he wagged a finger at her "still going to come after me?"

"No. We keep escalating and I'd rather have neither than both. No more tit for tat; I mean it! The next time you do something that could land you in solitary, I'm gone."

The Joker was sitting on his heels, with his arms crossed on top of his knees. He cocked his head to the side. "And that," he said, running his tongue over his teeth and making a clicking sound, "will make you happy?"

"Yes, that would make me very happy."

"And you'll stay with me?" The Joker so often behaved like a creature and not a man who probably wasn't even thirty, who had obviously lived through some very critical periods without even the most basic human interaction that Harley often forgot that's what he was. He had difficulty showing affection because the practise was alien to him. He was unable to express his emotional needs because they had never been met and he had no idea how. The fact he was able to have this conversation at all was a testament to the exhausting work Harley had done.

"As long as you keep your end of the bargain."

The Joker grabbed her by the shoulders and shot upright, taking her to feet far too suddenly. Her knees buckled under her. He grabbed her by the waist to keep her from toppling over. She threw and arm over his shoulder for support. Their eyes met. The fire in his gaze burned away all thoughts of anything but wanting him. She kissed him. He pinned her against the wall for leverage. Goddamn, she'd missed this! When they were together, there was nothing in the world besides the two of them. Nothing else mattered.

Afterwards, the Joker carried her to the waiting car. Her legs needed a break, though she wondered how he could still walk after that, let alone carry her. It was daylight now; Harley must have been out for a few hours. He placed her in the car, shut the door then made a call out of earshot. Once he was done, he instructed the clown at the wheel to remove his mask and drive to an address Harley wasn't familiar with.

"Ooh, swank-y!" Harley declared as they pulled up to the back of a palatial mansion. Harley had to wonder once again how many steps ahead of her the Joker was thinking; the place was not only quite adequate for her tastes, but had a servant entrance that allowed for everyone to come and go unnoticed. "Thanks, illustrious hosts… wherever they are."

"Travelling out-of-state," the Joker explained, "it's become fashionable for people who can afford it to leave Gotham when I'm on the loose. They've lost their ID and come down with a bad case of the giggles. It'll be months before anyone can sort out what's happened." Meaning the Joker was planning on an extended stay. The couple were lucky; unidentified patients weren't as high on the police's list of priorities as unidentified bodies, and so they would take longer to look into it. That was the only reason the people who owned this house were still alive.

"Aw, but then they miss all the fun!"

"One of life's disappointments, my sweet," the Joker consoled her as he took her chin in his hand. Harley kissed the Joker while a clown disabled the security and unlocked the front door with some no-doubt purloined keys.

Once the door was open, Harley cart-wheeled into the house. After a few turns she got back upright and squealed with delight. The Joker caught her up with one arm, doing an odd parody of a macho boyfriend. "Let's explore!" she urged. Harley was pretty sure the mansion was bigger than her old high school. The clown who had opened the house seemed to know its layout pretty well, and told them where everything was.

"Lookie, lookie!" the Joker had discovered that the service entrance opened onto a concealed hallway. They followed it up and found it led right to the master bedroom. "Must be used to admit late-night guests when the missus is sleeping in another room."

The master bedroom had a gigantic bed in it akin to something one would expect in the Playboy Mansion. Harley flopped down on it. "It's made of that fancy European foam!"

The Joker joined her. His eyes flicked around in alarm as he sank into the bed. "It's…eating me…" Harley giggled and rolled on top of him, making him sink down further. His eyes flashed wickedly. He craned his neck up to see the goon standing by the door. "Out," he snapped. The goon left without a word, closing the door behind him.

"Stop squirming!" Harley scolded the Joker for the umpteenth time. She'd dragged him into the shower and given him a well-needed washing (amidst other activities). Now she was clipping his exceedingly long and ragged fingernails. He was even more negligent about cutting them than he was about washing. The fact that he had the patience of a two-year-old didn't help; he kept fidgeting. She usually had to resort to trapping his arm between her thighs and clamping onto one finger at a time in her fist while she trimmed the nail.

"Aren't you done yet?" he asked petulantly.

"I'm only on my third finger!" He sighed and rolled his eyes. She made two more clips before he started fidgeting again. "Argh!" she shouted in frustration. Then, an idea struck her. "Lie down on the bed," she instructed him.

"On the carnivorous mattress?" he frowned, "I don't like it, it's too soft; I can't move."

"Ex-actly." Harley smiled. The Joker twisted his lips, a gesture exaggerated by his scars, but laid down obediently. She laid down in front of him, pinning his arm with her body and quickly finished the last two fingers on his right hand. As soon as she released him, the Joker reached down to grope her. This was the only reason he allowed her to cut his nails at all: she wouldn't let his hands near her nether-regions until they were washed and the nails trimmed. Plus, it made cutting the nails on his other hand easier, since he was busy with the first one. She didn't mind getting fingered, either.

She rolled over him to trap his left hand, freeing the right for…exploration. She tried to focus on clipping the rest of his nails as quickly as possible without taking any chunks of his fingers with them. If ever there were an event for clipping psychopaths' fingernails, Harley was sure she'd win first place. "Done!" she declared. She tossed the nail clippers away to where they wouldn't be a hazard.

"_Finally!_" he immediately got on top of her. They were still damp from the shower and their bodies slipped and slid against each other.

Just as Harley was getting into it, she heard a strange but familiar sound. She gasped and leapt to her feet, leaving the Joker on all fours, staring at her with a puzzled expression.

She grabbed the robe meant for the woman of the house, but the owner was clearly a rail, as the robe opened indecently at Harley's curves. She grabbed a pair of the man of the house's pyjama bottoms so she had some modesty and rushed out of the room, towards the source of the sound.

"BABIES!" she called in delight. The two hyenas bounded towards her, soon covering her in slobber and gibbering excitedly. "Who's my babies? Yes, yes!" she cooed. The Joker leaned on the doorjamb and watched as Harley rubbed her pets' bellies. He was absolutely swimming in a robe belonging to a man far more portly. "They look bigger," Harley mentioned.

"They are. They were still juveniles when I first got them. They're full-grown now."

Harley got up and kissed him. "Thanks for springin' 'em." The police had returned hyenas to the private safari they technically belonged to more than a year ago, and Harley hadn't seen them since.

"You're welcome. Now, I would like to pick up where we left off."

Jim Gordon stood waiting on the roof, the newly-refurbished bat-signal lighting up the night sky. He wasn't even aware of Batman's presence until the other man spoke.

"Are you sure you want to be seen using that again?" the gruff, disguised voice asked.

"You're the far lesser of two evils, as far as the citizens of Gotham are concerned."

"The greater being the Joker?"

"Word has gotten out about what he did to Pamela Isley; people are scared. And when they're scared, they look to you to protect them. But I need to tell you about what Miss Isley told me."

"Harley Quinn has been helping her." Gordon balked at Batman's skilful deduction. "That's why the hits on those labs and factories looked so much like a Joker job;" Batman explained, "she used all the skills she's developed with him to pull off these heists. And she killed anyone who got a good look at her so we couldn't tie her to the crimes, because she knows she'll be locked up for good if she gets caught."

"That's what we figure, but Isley won't implicate her. Actually, she said they were partners in the romantic sense. She says Harley left the Joker for her, and she claims the Joker abducted Dr. Quinzel just before you arrived. She fears for the good doctor's life."

"There's no telling what the Joker will do to her, if that's the case, and no telling what he'll do to Gotham once Dr. Quinzel is out of the way, either."

"We have to catch him, and soon. But you know his talent for disappearing when he doesn't want to be found."

"Your only chance would be to try and lure him out."

"We all know how well that turned out last time."

"We know a lot more about how the Joker operates, now. Haven't you noticed he tends to engage us on his terms? You can plan for him a lot better this time around. Bait him with something too tempting to resist, despite the risk. He'll come."

"Even if we catch him, what makes you think he'll tell us where he's keeping her?"

"Don't bother with him; lean on the trash that keeps him company. One of them is bound to know something. Talk to Isely if you have to; I think she has a few tricks up her sleeve, and she should be more than happy to help, if she cares about Dr. Quinzel as much as she says."

Gordon nodded. "All right; I'll try and come up with something."

"I have a suggestion."

The Joker laughed hysterically as he lay upside-down on the couch, reading the paper. "C'mere, Harley, tell me what you think of this," he beckoned.

"_Gordon announces Police Appreciation Dinner. 'Let's put a smile back on the faces of Gotham's finest.'_ Aw, gimme a break! That's practically an engraved invitation!"

"I'm disappointed, he's not even trying. Surely he could have made _some _effort to conceal the fact that it's a trap."

"It's downright insultin', even if he has given up on hidin' his motives from you."

"I smell a bat," the Joker declared as he re-read the details. He screwed up his face as he thought hard. "Still, I'd hate to disappoint everyone, when they've gone to so much trouble. And I've never seen Batman throw down the gauntlet like this. I'll do it!" Harley watched keenly as the Joker's synapses worked at light-speed. She couldn't wait to see what he formulated.

Everyone knew the Joker was going to attack, but they weren't going to make it easy. The dinner was being held in the newly-built Steam Trunk Convention Centre. Its unorthodox name was chosen to try and make it less attractive as a target to the nutjobs that had regularly been cropping up, and who liked to attack places that fit their various 'themes.' It was a low building, only two stories high, and built to the specifications of a bank vault. The walls were solid steel, the windows were made of the most bullet-proof material on the market, and they were tall and narrow, making them poor choices for a forced entry while still letting in lots of natural light. Massive sliding doors and blast shields could be activated in seconds to seal off the whole building if someone tried to attack using heavy arsenal (it was rumoured this feature had been added after the Joker's hit on Selltek). Dozens of independently-powered titanium air scrubbers peppered the ceiling, ready to go off at the slightest hint of any of the myriad of toxins, nerve gasses and other noxious substances they were programmed to detect. It was set on a vast and well-defended piece of property, with a good mile of open terrain in all directions that had to be crossed before anyone could storm the compound. All guests had to park their vehicles in a lot at the far corner of the property and pass through security before getting on a shuttle that took them to the building. Even the sewers and storm drains were under surveillance. Thorough background checks were made on all staff and guests, and everyone had to be visually identified on a list that was triple-checked by the Commissioner himself before being handed over to security, making infiltration impossible. Dogs trained to sniff out drugs, poison, accelerants and explosives checked every item that came into the building, and every square inch of it.

The whole place was just _begging _to be hit: a custom-made challenge just for the Joker, and he was eager to rise to it. First, he stole the building's schematics. Since Gordon had made no effort to hide his trap, the Joker made no attempt to hide his intentions, either. This would be a battle of nerves, as much as anything else. Gordon was having the dinner that evening, clearly trying to limit the time the Joker had to gather resources and manpower. The Joker made no sign of that causing him any trouble, though, and terrorized the Gotham police, wearing down morale. He did it in broad daylight, mainly in the morning, when Batman was nowhere to be found.

The Joker kept Harley by his side throughout. She gushed at his ingenious attacks, admiring his innate ability to find and exploit every security hole in Gordon and Batman's well-laid plans. She was also very outspoken about her happiness over her inclusion in everything.

"Oh, puddin', it's how I always wanted it to be!" she told him as she threw her arms around him before they headed out, "this is how I want to spend the rest of my life!"

The Joker laughed gleefully. "Baby, I'm just getting started."

After a sumptuous dinner the mayor had paid for, Commissioner Gordon rose to give the required speech. "We still seem to be missing a guest or two," the assembled police chuckled knowingly at Gordon's quip, "but before they arrive, I want to tell you all how proud I am of you. I know the Gotham P.D. hasn't always been the best example of law enforcement, but that's in the past now, and you're the people who made that happen. The Philosopher Jeremy Bentham fist proposed that the law should ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. It is my firm belief that our police force helps to do just that. Well done, all of you; well done."

The whole hall gave Gordon a standing ovation. They clapped and cheered and whistled raucously. It went on longer than anyone expected. As the cheers died down, everyone became aware of a humming sound coming from somewhere. Everyone jumped into action. Guns were drawn in all directions. SWAT Team members withdrew to a hallway to suit up. Security began sweeping the hall.

"It's coming from the scrubbers," one of the security guards announced.

"Gas masks!" everyone reached under their tables for the gas masks supplied in case the Joker managed to gas them. Just then, all the little balloons that had been decorating the tables began to burst in dusty little pops.

"The pressure's dropping! Someone's using a vacuum to pump out the air!" Chairs were hurriedly mounted onto tables as everyone made a desperate search for the offending device.

Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, a car with tinted windows drove up to the bar at the security checkpoint. The license plate checked out, so the guard there let it in. As soon as it was past the bullet-proof glass, however, its windows opened up to reveal an arsenal of automatic weapons. The parking lot security was dispatched in a matter of seconds.

The Joker and four clowns jumped out of the vehicle. The Joker signalled to his men to make sure all the guards were dead, and hurried over towards the shuttle bus. He levelled his Smith & Wesson at the driver. "You have a very simple job to do," the Joker explained to the other man, "just drive me and my pals up to the building. If you're quick about it, you might not even get shot." The Joker made his last point sound like a really nice bonus.

The bus driver just stared in wide-eyed terror as the Joker and his clowns got on the bus. He shut the door and drove briskly towards the convention centre without saying a word.

"Open the doors!" Gordon ordered inside. The air was getting very thin very quickly; they had no choice. Gordon couldn't risk killing half the force from oxygen deprivation. At least with fresh air, the police had a fighting chance.

Outside, the Joker had dismounted the bus and approached the door, just as it was opening. One of the clowns neatly shot the door operators (both human and mechanical), ensuring the door stayed open. From within, the laughter was beginning. The bus driver shot a dark look at the clowns' backs, then retreated and lifted a panel up in the floor of the shuttle bus.

Gordon watched in horror as a staggering number of the police assembled began to collapse, laughing hysterically.

"Now this is my kind of party!" the Joker announced as he made his dramatic entrance.

"Take cover!" Gordon shouted. The handful of unaffected officers turned the banquet tables on their sides. The tables landed with loud, metallic bangs.

"Very nice of you to set this all up for me, com-mishoner," the Joker drawled. It soon became evident that the tables were perfectly suited to being used as shields; when the Joker took pot-shots at the hidden officers, the bullets ricocheted everywhere. The Joker dodged a few stray bullets and laughed manically. The clowns hurried to knock over a nearby table to use for their own cover.

While the clowns were dodging their own gunfire, Gordon carefully took aim and shot one of them in the leg. He went down. Gordon tried not to savour the victory.

"What's the matter, Jim, waiting on the Bat?" the Joker taunted.

"No need to wait," Batman assured them as he appeared at the door. The Joker immediately laid down a barrage of gunfire, narrowly missing one of his own men as he shot at Batman.

"Now the party's really starting!" the Joker laughed.

The Joker's gunfire only slowed Batman down momentarily, and none of it seemed to penetrate the armour underneath Batman's suit. The Joker did not seem surprised; Batman was wearing heavy armour and his face was completely covered.

Batman advanced on the Joker and his men while Gordon and the other able-bodied police kept them pinned down with gunfire. Batman quickly took out the three remaining clowns. The Joker pulled out a knife and stabbed at likely weak points in Batman's armour.

"I must say, Gotham's finest look anything but fine." The Joker laughed manically as he stabbed again and again. His attempts came up fruitless.

"Game over, Joker," Batman said as he closed in on the madman. "You're going back to Arkham."

"Not necessarily," the Joker's retort was punctuated by a strange blast that knocked Batman off his feet. A yellow Humvee screeched to a halt outside and the Joker made a dash for it. Police turned to open fire, but were knocked back by another wave of unknown energy.

"Ah-ah, no funny business," Harley scolded from behind the open door of the hummer. A strange, black weapon had been mounted to the top of the hummer and Harley was holding the trigger. The Joker grabbed the rim of the roof and swung his feet up behind the protection of the door.

"Dr. Quinzel!" Gordon called.

"Harley Quinn!" Harley corrected sharply.

"Are you all right?"

Harley and the Joker exchanged quizzical glances. "Stellar!" she answered as the Joker scrambled over her, into the hummer. She slammed the door shut as soon as he was in. Police sirens could already be heard as the hummer peeled back down the road. Noises followed that could only mean the two were punching their way through the police line with their new weapon.

"Cuff those clowns!" Gordon ordered before the goons could cause further trouble.

Harvey Bullock, who had taken over as head of MCU after Gordon's promotion to Commissioner, appeared in the hall that led to the kitchen where the food was kept. "Get that anti-toxin into these cops pronto!" he ordered to the staff behind him. The staff fanned out, carrying small kits filled with epi-pens and began injecting the affected officers. Someone got on the radio and put out an APB for the yellow hummer.

"DAMN!" Gordon swore as soon as the chaos subsided. Batman growled empathetically.

"Nice job, pointy-ears," Bullock sniped. "Now half the force is out of commission and that whack-job's still on the loose."

"Not for long." Batman turned to Gordon "that looked like some soft of ultra-low-frequency sonic weapon. Almost certainly experimental, probably illegal and developed by a private company that didn't want to advertise it had been stolen. Maybe developed for illegal activities from the start. I expect the Department of Defense and the FBI will want to hear about that. If you bring them in, you might just get Gotham's weapons racket under control."

Gordon sighed. "It's not what we were after, but it's a start." Batman nodded and departed without saying another word.

Bullock turned to Gordon. "I'll take these scumbags downtown and see what they can tell me. This ain't your fault, commish," Bullock reassured him, "but that's the last time we do it the Bat-freak's way."

The next day, Gordon debriefed the MCU. "We believe someone from the Joker's gang must have broken into the conference centre yesterday while the Joker was causing mayhem in the city," he explained sombrely. "They then installed three air vacuums into three different scrubber systems. We found traces of a compound in the balloons that, when mixed with a second compound in the meat's seasoning, produced the toxin known as Joker Venom. Because they were kept separated, they were undetectable by the dogs. Furthermore, the compound in the balloons was in very small amounts, but because we were short on air and under stress, forensics believes our breathing was sufficiently accelerated to inhale the necessary amount of powder. People who were farther away from the balloons, like myself, and people who had been drinking enough to counteract the stress of the situation were unaffected." Gordon tried not to sound reproachful as he explained this. He didn't mention that the Joker had almost certainly timed his attack to make sure Gordon was away from the balloons and wouldn't inhale enough of the powder to be affected; he had wanted the commissioner to fight. "Now, I would like to introduce Mike Thomas, of the FBI. The federal authorities were very prompt in responding to our inquiries about the new weapon the Joker used, and will also help in apprehending the Joker, as they wish to question him about it. Please give Agent Thomas your full support and cooperation."

"Thank you, Commissioner," Agent Thomas nodded. "The Joker has now become a matter of federal interest. The FBI is deploying a full unit in order to apprehend the Joker and find the source of the illegal weapons that organized crime is using in Gotham in order to escalate its war against the law. If we deem it necessary, additional National Guards will also be called in…"

A few weeks later, a young officer chuckled as he dusted the floor-to-ceiling picture window for prints. "Damn; Dr. Quinzel must be a D-cup at least!" The dusting had revealed a body-print. It was kind of erotic until one realized it was the Joker who had pinned her there, and the up-down smearing of the print left little question about what they had been doing.

Detective Bullock stifled his laughter as the owner of the house charged towards him, red-faced with fury. "You think this is _funny?! _Just _look_ at what they did to the bedroom!" Walters hissed.

"Yes, Mr. Walters. There's no evidence of any felonious illegal activity in here. Forensics shot some photos; we've dusted for prints, that's all we need."

Walters gaped at the body-print, and then pulled a face as he saw the hand-prints on either side of it. "But the _things_ they left behind; if whatever they were doing with that stuff wasn't illegal, it _ought _to be!"

"The Joker's notoriously violent in his bedroom activities, Mr. Walters. You should count yourself lucky: we usually find a lot of blood and sharp objects where he beds. That stuff there's just…weird." Bullock tried not to think about what the Joker and Harley had used the bizarre array of items for.

Walters shuddered in revulsion. "The thought of that maniac doing -ugh! I don't even want to think about it! -in my bed; I want to torch the whole house."

Mrs. Walters appeared, caressing a glass of gin. "I don't know why you're so bothered; you've bought services just as unsavoury from those call-girls. I'd be more worried about the premiums you're going to have to pay for that Joker insurance you thought was so preposterous." Mr. Walters snatched the gin out of her hand and downed it in one gulp. "Consuela, bring the bottle!" Mrs. Walters called. She reclaimed the empty glass and held it out to a maid who appeared with an extremely expensive-looking bottle of gin. "I'll say this for the clown, whatever he gave us beat the hell out of my Prozac." She surveyed the lewd prints on the window as she sipped the refilled glass. "And he certainly has a taste for the ironic; that's probably the most monogamous sex this bedroom has ever seen."

Bullock addressed Mrs. Walters in hopes of getting more concrete answers out of her than he had her husband. "Mrs. Walters, we haven't seen any signs of forced entry, so we believe the Joker somehow got hold of your house keys and your security codes. We suspect he had inside information. Your daughter was committed to Arkham last year, is that correct?"

"After she burned down our villa, yes. Russell thought it would help set her straight." Mrs. Walters rolled her eyes sceptically. Mr. Walters eyed her angrily, clearly wanting to kept he matter private.

"Has she associated with anyone she may have met there?"

"I'm afraid I'm not privy to the company my daughter keeps…although, there was that dreadful boy –what's his name? Jackie? Madison is completely besotted with him. I saw him a few times; he looked like the type."

"Jackie Spencer, A.K.A. Jackie Spade; a regular in the Joker's gang." Bullock turned to forensics, "check for Spencer's fingerprints." He turned back to the Walters. "I would advise you to do a background check on your daughter's boyfriends in the future. Being a little more involved in her life wouldn't hurt either. Being informed of your teen's life goes a long way towards ensuring they stay in the straight and narrow." He pulled out his notebook. "All right, so far we have abduction, poisoning with the wilful intent to cause bodily harm, theft of identification, unlawful entry, unlawful occupation, grand theft auto, we'll put the hyenas' mess under vandalism, an' a few more counts of theft." Bullock took another look around the bedroom "I'm not even sure this counts as vandalism." He shook his head. "You'll send us a list of all missing items?"

"All ready working on it," Mrs. Walter assured him.

Bullock's phone rang. "Yeah?" he answered.

"_I just got a call from Wanda Spencer; Dr. Quinzel's parole officer,"_ Gordon told him.

"What did she have to say?" Bullock asked, stunned.

"_Dr. Quinzel called her this morning, at their regular meeting time. The number traced to an out-of-state payphone."_

"Meaning the FBI takes over completely," Bullock growled. "You got any good news?"

"_Well, Wanda thinks the Joker has stopped battering Harley, and she said Dr. Quinzel sounded more upbeat than she's been in quite some time."_

"Thank heavens for small favours," Bullock replied, trying not to sound ironic, rude or condescending. Gordon was a real nice guy who lived off of the small good that came out of his job, and he encouraged the rest of the force to do the same. It was probably the only way to be a cop in this town and stay sane.

Author's note: sorry if this chapter is kind of slow and meandering. I needed something to put between the previous one and the next one, and didn't have much idea of what would go in here. Next chapter may be the conclusion. I have a couple of ideas floating around, but I'm not sure if I can fit it all in.


End file.
